


These Wings of Mine

by DuchessDeeDee



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Black eyed one, Dejun is lowkey running the show, Dragon shifter, Fenghuang - Freeform, Griffin - Freeform, Grim Reaper - Freeform, Huli Jing, Jingwei, M/M, Mark's glasses, Medusa - Freeform, Nct as supernatural creatures, Selkie - Freeform, Shaman - Freeform, Vampires, Werewolf, Wings, all seeing eye, amefurikozo, eopsin, fae, kodama - Freeform, merman, plant child, sphinx, they're very important, time manipulator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-23
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2020-09-24 12:43:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20358703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DuchessDeeDee/pseuds/DuchessDeeDee
Summary: Mark had been so excited, so happy, so verypleasedthat another kid was coming to the house. Jaehyun and Sicheng were pretty close in age to Mark, but there was something to be said for a single year age gap as compared to two and up. Mark had picked the best flowers from the field with Taeyong’s assistance, even wrapped one of his two stuffed animals (he wasn’t too old for them, despite what the other kids at the orphanage said) to give the younger when he arrived. He’d put on his best (and only) long sleeved shirt, straightening his grass stained pants best he could and washing his feet.Donghyuck took one look at him and his black, empty eyes and burst into tears.





	1. Deep in the Meadow

**Author's Note:**

> Hashtag when you meet a Nctzen in real life.
> 
> If you get confused on who's a descendant of what (like me), check the bottom notes.
> 
> That aside, I'd like to thank 119 for setting the vibe for this story and motivating me to finish writing it. Honestly, the entire We Boom album is, like, life.

Mark likes to watch Donghyuck fly.

Not in, like, a creepy way or anything, but something about the younger’s care free expression as he soars above the house is relaxing. It’s a sharp contrast to the indifferent expression he always gives Mark, turning his back on him like they haven’t lived together for most of their lives. Mark doesn’t blame him. He would be scared of himself if he was someone else. Sometimes he _ is _ scared of himself. 

Unfortunately, there’s not much he can do about it. Genes are genes, and not even Dejun’s all seeing eye can find a solution. So, Mark wears glasses. Magical glasses, of course, enchanted by Kun himself. His eyes are masked, brown like they should to be. Mark wouldn’t want to _ unsettle _ anybody. 

So maybe he has a little built up anger. That’s fine, everyone does. Everyone that lives in this house, anyways. 

“I’m hungry,” Jeno says out loud.

Mark rolls over onto his stomach, physics notes crinkling under his arm. “Go bug Nana to make you something.”

“Jaemin hyung is mad at Jeno hyung,” Yangyang reliably informs Mark. 

“He is _ not _. He’s just. Upset. A little.”

“Did you break Renjun’s Moomin figurine again?” Mark asks knowingly. He doesn’t even have to take off his glasses to see the guilt manifested in Jeno as he slumps his shoulders. It’s not entirely Jeno’s fault. His tail is just really long and tends to knock things off the bathroom sink when he soaks it in the bathtub, where Renjun’s toothbrush holding Moomin figurine-a birthday gift from Jaemin last year-stands. 

“Yeah.”

Chenle scoffs, handing Yangyang his Nintendo remote and leisurely crawling to his feet. His layered wings twitch as Yangyang’s fingers brush against them on the way up. “Then why don’t you ask Taeil hyung to fix it?”

“He already reversed time for me last week,” if possible, Jeno slumps even further. “He told me if I wanted to get another reversal, I needed to bring him a pearl since he keeps running out because of me.”

“And Taeyong hyung banned you from the ocean for a month,” Yangyang finishes for him. “Wow, you are in a pickle.”

“Maybe if you didn’t fall asleep and miss curfew-” Chenle starts with a mischievous expression.

“Don’t blame me,” Jeno protests. “My scales have been dry for _ weeks _ , so I went in for a quick swim, but then Yukhei hyung found this _ really _ awesome seal that we hung out with, and seals are pretty fast, you know, so we got tired-“

Mark tunes them out, instead adjusting his glasses as he tries to focus on the words on the page. He must have been looking at it for hours now, and he’s no closer to finding a solution than he has been for the last nineteen years of his existence. Equations seem to float off the page and Mark pinches the bridge of the nose, wishing for the uptenth time that he could take off his glasses.

“Hey, Mark hyung?”

Sighing, Mark turns to look into Jeno’s puppy dog eyes. He already knows what’s coming, and already knows he’s going to give in. “Yes?”

“Could you, uh,” Jeno scoots closer on the bed, acting like a fourteen year old Jisung telling him he hated his powers and wanted to get rid of them. That had been a fun conversation. “Could you ask Taeil hyung for your favor?”

“To do what?” Mark may be acquiescing, but he’s going to enjoy this for as long as he can. 

“To, um, fix Renjun’s Moomin for me?” Jeno has the nerve to eye smile at Mark. The audacity.

Mark pretends to think it over, to which the other three occupants of the room are not fooled. Chenle goes so far to roll his eyes, preening as Yangyang pets his feathers. “Fine. But you owe me a Sea-Find once Taeyong hyung lets you back in the water.”

“Of course, thank you, hyung,” Jeno continues beaming, looking like Mark just gave him the world, and this is probably why the younger kids (and sometimes older kids) come to Mark for help. Because he’s weak. 

“Weak,” Chenle and Yangyang say in unison, then exchange high fives and dart into the corridor, Yangyang’s dragon tail poking out of the bottom of his pants, probably to find Jisung since they need three people to play the game and Jeno gave up after six consecutive losses (even though this is a four person game, but Mark’s given up on questioning it long ago). 

Jeno turns his eyes on him again and Mark sighs, bookmarking his page. “Alright, I’m going.”

“Yay! I promise I’ll give you first pick of my Sea-Finds,” Jeno claps his hands happily.

Mark waves him off, making a quick stop in Renjun’s room to grab said figurine and make his way to Taeil’s room. 

Ten is lounging on his bed when Mark knocks on the door to his shared room. He looks up, tail flickering behind him as Mark peeks his head in. Mark clears his throat. “Is Taeil in here?”

Ten tilts his head. “I have one head, but two mouths. Call me armless, but I pick up stones, see me legless, yet I run on land. What am I?”

“A river bifurcation,” Mark answers absentmindedly as he glances around the room for Taeil. Jungwoo waves at him from his spot on the floor, fangs poking his bottom lip as he sips at a blood juice box, pressing flowers between the pages of a phone book. 

Ten sighs, gracefully tumbling off the bed and coming to stand in front of Mark. “Sometimes I wonder if you’re some sort of subspecies of sphinx. C’mon, I heard him say he was going to shore up the defenses with Kun and Jaehyun.”

The house is, despite what they call it, not really a house. Ten and Mark pass room after room, climbing down two flights of stairs before they make it to the bottom floor. The house is more of a mansion, beaten up and discarded when Taeil, Taeyong and Johnny bought it. Now it’s home for people like Mark and Ten and everyone who doesn’t fit the category of ‘entirely human’. While some people can hide themselves, meld and mold themselves into the picture of homosapien, most of them don’t have the luxury. Which is why they live here, in the countryside where the only thing to see for miles is the beach and ocean at their doorstep and acres of grass and trees. 

Of course, now there’s twenty-one of them, which Mark suspects was not part of the plan. Still, sharing a room with two, three, sometimes four other people is preferable to the looks he used to get, the disgust and disdain. 

“-think Guanheng understands how riddles work,” Ten continues, and Mark nods along, pretending he was paying attention. “But he still tries to answer every one I throw at him. It’s both adorable and annoying. Also, aren’t his fangs, like, the cutest thing ever? He flashes his eyes when he tries to intimidate me, but it makes him even cuter. He’s the cutest thing _ ever _.”

“I’m cuter,” Yangyang interjects, affronted from where he’s sitting at the kitchen table. Mark wonders what happened to Jisung and Chenle until he sees them curled up under the table, hurriedly wrapping something around what is unequivocally Dongyoung’s chair due to the special seat cushion he’d ordered earlier that year. Yangyang kicks them and they freeze, looking up at Mark and Ten innocently. 

Ten rolls his eyes, patting Yanyang’s head and waving away the smoke that puffs out of his nose. “Yes, yes, you’re the baby.”

“I’m _ not _ a baby.”

“I thought _ I _ was the baby?”

Yangyang and Jisung glance at each other, startled, and Jisung’s cheeks turn red in embarrassment as Chenle laughs at him. Mark, try as he might, is powerless to resist and crouches under the table, pinching Jisung’s cheeks. There’s just something so satisfying and adorable about the elasticity of them, and really, who is Mark to ignore something cute? Jisung sits there resignedly, a black cloak briefly appearing on his shoulders before he wills it away. “You _ are _ a baby, Jisung-ah.”

“Mark hyung is being weird again,” Chenle states, going back to taping Dongyoung’s chair without a hint of shame. Ten eyes him approvingly. 

“Okaaaay, let’s just go,” Mark says. Yangyang yawns widely, offering Mark a strawberry in apology, which he accepts and bites into. Ten reaches out to fistbump Chenle before they continued outside.

They pass the garden, Yuta tending to his Sugi tree while Yukhei splashes around in all his selkie glory in the small pond next to it, banned from the ocean alongside Jeno. Renjun dangles his feet in the water, watching Yukhei and occasionally sending waves when Yukhei starts to make too much of a mess of Renjun’s domain, his poleless umbrella flickering in and out of sight. Sicheng is curled around the base of Yuta’s tree, his nine tails covering him like a blanket from the cool ocean breeze. Yuta pauses in his leaf pruning to scratch behind Sicheng’s ears, laughing as he purrs contentedly. 

“You still down for that race later?” Ten hollers at Sicheng. Yukhei pops his head out of the water, letting out a loud seal laugh before diving back under. Sicheng lets out a tired growl Mark takes to be a yes given Ten’s grin and flickering tail as he drags Mark to the front gates. 

Kun is already working on the defense spells by the time they get there, Jaemin curled around his shoulders in snake form and acting as his familiar. Jaehyun casually hisses with him, the snakes in his hair occasionally contributing to the conversation before hiding beneath his brown locks. Dongyoung is doing whatever secret magic it is that Fae’s possess, and Taeyong has rooted himself to the ground, his body glowing as he absorbs the sunlight and strengthens the enormous Venus Flytraps planted around the gates and walls. Dejun occasionally calls out directions, eyes glowing silver as he stares into nothingness while Taeil carefully undoes the damage sustained to the front gate in the last attack, hands glowing green. 

“Maybe we should come back later,” Mark whispers to Ten. 

“Eh, they’re almost done,” Ten points out, his eyes briefly flickering to where Johnny and Haechan are circling above, every now and then playfully diving at one another as they keep watch. 

The front gates must have been awe-inspiring, once, but now the large marble pillars need to be repaired almost daily. The black iron gates resemble hunks of metal until Jaehyun steps forward to straighten them out, and the protection spells flicker brokenly as Kun, Dongyoung, and Jaemin do their best to repair them. The walls surrounding their house have never been breached, the twenty foot barriers nearly impenetrable, but the gate is the most vulnerable point in it and is thereby the main point of attack. 

Ten and Mark make camp a few feet away, watching the slow progress. Ten eventually gets bored enough to let Mark comb through his tail, trusting him enough to look away and hold a conversation with Jaehyun, who’s more or less done since he already spoke to the snake senteries. The snakes in his hair peek out, intrigued by Mark’s presence as always. In his mind Mark’s named them; flicker-tongue, orange-eyes, sleepy-snake, and busy-body, who always seems to be up in all the other snake’s business. 

Eventually they finish, Taeil wearily lowering his hand and Taeyong stumbling back, releasing his roots and no longer glowing. Jaemin slithers off Kun’s shoulders and shifts back to his human form, stretching his arms and yawning widely. Mark knows it takes a lot out of him to act as a magical conduit, but he smiles nonetheless, his protection magic interwoven with Kun’s spells and Dongyoung’s...Dongyoung-ness. 

“I’m tired,” Dejun announces, his eyes back to their warm brown. Dongyoung wraps an arm around his shoulders, his wings pressing back into his back and his glamor shifting back into place. 

“Well, Jeno was supposed to order takeout from that one place that teleports your food directly to you, so we shouldn’t be cooking tonight,” Jaemin tells Taeyong and Dongyoung. “He owes me. Oh, hey Mark hyung.”

Mark guiltily hides the figurine behind his back. “Hey, Nana. How are you feeling?”

“Like I just spent four hours as a snake,” Jaemin informes him, cracking his back. “Man, Kun hyung, we have got to find a better way to form a connection. My spine is not meant to hang like that for that long.”

The grass a few feet away from them flattens as Donghyuck and Johnny circle, eventually landing and folding their wings. Donghyuck pats out the last of the flames licking his feathers and Johnny’s ears twitch, his tail flicking back and forth as he brushes his hair down. 

Dongyoung makes a pointed look at Donghyuck’s scorched hoodie and he holds his hands out in protest. “What? It was really cold today, so I warmed Johnny hyung and I up.”

“You could have at least taken the hoodie off first,” Dongyoung says reproachfully, but snags said hoodie out of the air when Donghyuck tosses it to him, tucking it under his arms to fix when his magic is replenished. Mark carefully doesn’t look at Donghyuck, even though all he wants to do is stare at him for hours and hours, making sure his glasses are in place when he glances at Johnny. 

“I thought I was gonna freeze,” Johnny says in agreement, rolling his shoulders. “Thank you for being a phoenix, Donghyuck.”

“_ Fenghuang _.”

Johnny shrugs, used ot the argument. “Same thing.”

“Uh, no, they’re not,” Donghyuck protests. “The Fenghuang originated in the sun, phoenix’s-”

“Heard it before,” Johnny waves him away. There’s a grin at the corner of his mouth that Mark knows means he’s just teasing Donghyuck. It’s Donghyuck’s fault for rising to the bait every time. Mark still finds it endearing.

Donghyuck grumbles under his breath. “Stupid griffins.” Johnny tugs on Donghyuck’s wing for that one, laughing as Donghyuck pokes him back.

“Let’s head in,” Taeyong groans, shaking his head. Petals flutter out, blue as the hair they sprouted in. “I don’t want anyone outside when night hits.”

“Aye aye, leader man,” Ten says, giggling when Taeyong makes a face at him and slipping an arm around his right side while Jaehyun goes for the left. 

“I can get back fine on my own.”

“I’m sure you can,” Jaehyun soothes, his snakes hissing in agreement, “but just in case.”

Donghyuck brushes past Mark without so much as a glance, immediately chattering with Jaemin and Dongyoung. Johnny shoots Mark a sympathetic look and he shrugs, far too used to it. His heart, apparently, didn’t get the memo, because it thuds painfully until he forces himself to look away. 

Dejun looks up as Mark approaches him, Taeil, and Kun. “Ah. You have a question.”

“I have a question,” Mark confirms. There’s something both comforting and disconcerting in that Dejun always knows everything before it happens. Perks of being an offspring of the Fates, Mark supposes.

“Alright, let’s give Mark hyung a little space, Kun ge,” Dejun says cheerfully, linking arms with Kun and tugging him away before he can protest. 

Taeil doesn’t look the least bit surprised when Mark holds out the shattered remains of Renjun’s figurine. “Mark, you should save some of these uses for yourself.”

Mark just blinks. “Please?”

Taeil sighs, opening his hands. Mark drops the pieces in them and Taeil slips out a pearl from his pocket, quickly turning back time, wrists briefly lighting up green. “There. Good as new.”

“Thanks, hyung,” Mark says, cradling the Moomin carefully in his jacket sleeve. His glasses slide down his nose and Mark hastily pushes them back up, closing his eyes until he’s sure they’re back in place.

Taeil is looking at him when Mark’s eyes finally focus again. “You know none of us care if you don’t wear those, right?”

“None of you _ want _ to care,” Mark corrects. “It’s ok. They’re unsettling, and I don’t want anyone to feel scared in their own home.”

“It’s your home too, Mark,” Taeil reminds him.

Mark looks away.

On the way back inside, Mark tripping over a rock in the field that someone most likely brought back from the beach when Jaemin nudges him playfully, Taeyong and Dongyoung, assisted by Jaehyun, wrangle the last of the stragglers, Yuta refusing to come out of his tree until Sicheng gently asks him. Yukhei cradles his second skin to his chest, laughing as Renjun’s umbrella appears at the wrong moment and he gets stuck in the door. He tries to tug it out, but it’s difficult when the umbrella has no pole. Jaemin eventually takes mercy on him and helps knock it out of the doorframe. 

“-put the plate to the right, oh my god Chenle-”

“-the chicken, Yangyang, not the beef, the _ chicken- _”

“-would you say if I accidentally upturned an entire tray of Mongolien beef? Hypothetically.”

“-doesn’t look very hypothetical to _ me _.”

Taeyong pinches the bridge of his nose, briefly closing his eyes like he’s in pain. Mark wouldn’t be surprised if he was, dishes being carried to the long wooden table haphazardly on outstretched hands, Chenle nearly colliding with Guanheng as he turns around. Yukhei bounds into the mess, dragging Sicheng, and by extension, Yuta, along with him.

“Sometimes I question if the twenty grand was worth it,” Taeil muses, giving the figurine in Mark’s hand a significant glance before jumping into the fray with Taeyong, trying to sort out the flailing limbs and off-hand shrieks with minimal success. Mark gets the message-really, Taeil couldn’t have been a _ little _ more subtle?-and turns to run up the stairs. 

He makes it five steps before a voice rings after him and he freezes. “What are you doing with that?”

Mark slowly turns back around, looking at Donghyuck’s tee shirt clad shoulder. “I don’t see how that’s your concern.”

“It’s my concern seeing as that isn’t yours. Unless you developed a sudden fondness for Moomin in the last few days and just _ had _ to get the same figurine Jaemin got Renjun for his birthday?”

“I helped Jeno fix it,” Mark tells the wall next to Donghyuck’s left eye. “I’m just putting it away so Jeno can give it back in apology.”

“Really? Hey, at least look at me.”

Mark frowns, eyes skittering over Donghyuck’s face, his nose, his mouth, before landing on the painting to his right. Anything but looking him in the eye. “I’ll just be a moment. You can go back.”

Donghyuck snorts but thankfully backs down. Mark’s heart is still doing that horrible thing where it’s not sure if Mark is terrified or in love with Donghyuck, so he’s thankful for the little distance he provides. “You better hurry up. I am not waiting five minutes for you to sneak around.”

“That was one time-”

“Later, loser.”

Mark watches Donghyuck saunter over to the table, the tips of his wings dragging against the ground since he was too lazy to keep them lifted above it. The golden color glimmers even in the poor lighting above the kitchen table, highlighting Donghyuck’s skin tone and making him look even more sun-kissed. Mark can’t get enough of him. Mark also can’t get away fast enough. 

He hides the statue in the corner of Jeno’s bookshelf, his bed across from Mark’s and next to Chenle and Yangyang’s bunk bed. He pauses, catching sight of his glasses in the mirror. His eyes, brown, fake, blink back at him and Mark steps a little closer. Feels the side of his head, closes his eyes, and takes off the glasses. 

One breath. Two.

Mark glances up at the mirror and black eyes stare back at him, as soulless as the night. The only thing anyone feels when they see these eyes is fear, and Mark can’t help the small tendril that curls around his heart and squeezes. 

~.~

Mark is a Black Eyed One. There were so few of his kind that for years Mark didn’t know what he was. No one knew where they came from or what their purpose was, but there were a few defining features. First was the soulless black eyes. Second was the feeling of dread and despair whenever another person gazed into their eyes. Finally was their inability to enter a room without permission (which led to Taeyong leading Mark through every room in the house when he first moved in and giving him permission to enter all of them. It was a pain). Many likened that trait to vampires, wondered if they maybe came from the same branch. While not mentioned in any book, Mark also has a propensity for sensing emotions. Sometimes he feels a tingling in his fingers, magic coursing through his veins, but he squashes the urge to test it out. So much about his species is unknown, and no matter how much research Mark does, he finds little more. 

His search for a cure is just as fruitless. 

After folklore had failed him, Mark turned to psychology, then biology, then physics when the former proved just as pointless. He’s heard of hu-_ Creatures _ that could reverse their abilities or at least suppress them enough that they didn’t affect their day-to-day lives. Kun’s glasses enchantment helps, hiding his true eyes so that Mark can at least look at himself in the mirror in the mornings, but few people can stand to be in the same room as Mark for more than an hour, leaving with shivering bodies and thudding hearts. 

Jeno, Yangyang, and Chenle are special. Their inheritances makes it so they are more or less immune to Mark’s very being, or close enough in origin that it had no affect, Jeno and Yangyang’s scales deflecting, and Chelnle’s Jingwei ancestors born of death. On the upside, since they’re four to a room, they get one of the biggest rooms in the house. Jisung had also been their roommate originally, but his and Mark’s powers played off each other a little too well, making their abilities sprout in the middle of the night. Instead, he now shares a room with Jaemin and Dongyoung. Mark has it rough, but Jisung’s right up there, being a Grim Reaper (or, at least, having the abilities of one). 

They all came here at different points in their lives. The original trio (nicknamed the ‘OT’ by Jaemin, proclaiming himself a genius) bought the house when Johnny and Taeyong were just seventeen, Taeil barely past eighteen and making their purchase legal. Not that anyone wanted the house with the amount of work it required to be up in working order, but legalities. Mark showed up soon after, left outside the front gates by the orphanage workers who’d heard rumors about the place. Then came Jaehyun, Sicheng, and finally Donghyuck. 

Mark had been so excited, so happy, so very _ pleased _ that another kid was coming to the house. Jaehyun and Sicheng were pretty close in age to Mark, but there was something to be said for a single year age gap as compared to two and up. Mark had picked the best flowers from the field with Taeyong’s assistance, even wrapped one of his two stuffed animals (he wasn’t too old for them, despite what the other kids at the orphanage said) to give the younger when he arrived. He’d put on his best (and only) long sleeved shirt, straightening his grass stained pants best he could and washing his feet. The Black Eyed Ones were known for their bare, dirty feet and ripped pants, and while it wasn’t easy for Mark to deny his nature back then, he had tried his best. 

The blue toyota corolla sped away on the dirt road, its inhabitants not bothering to see if Donghyuck had even made it to the house. Donghyuck’s hand was clutched around a small, beat up bag. His shirt was torn in the back, making way for two golden brown wings that looked comically large on the boy, like a puppy not quite grown into his paws. His eyes were a beautiful shade of brown, and his hesitant smile was one of the nicest things Mark had ever seen. He knew they were going to be great friends. At Taeil’s reassuring nudge he stepped forwards, offering the bundle of flowers and a badly wrapped Mr. Snuffington.

Donghyuck took one look at him and his black, empty eyes and burst into tears. 

That was the start of their animosity, although Mark had never held it against the younger. He knew just how unsettling his eyes were-they had even made Jisung cry, when he was younger, and he was a being of _ death _-saw them in the mirror every morning. When Kun arrived, Mark begged him for something to hide his eyes and aura. Kun had set to work after smothering Mark in hugs because apparently auras had no affect on him and he was just a kind and compassionate person. The glasses were a turning point, allowing Mark to finally meet and become friends, family, with the rest of the house dwellers. He knows his presence is still unsettling, but it’s a start.

And then the attacks started. 

Society has always been against them. Abominations, they called them. Brought pitchforks and everything. The first night was terrifying, watching them pound at the barriers Kun and Dongyoung had set up preemptively. Jisung curled up next to Mark, covering his ears. The rest of the younger kids soon followed, Donghyuck even taking a perch at the end of Mark’s bed and clinging to Dejun. 

They were ready for the next one, Taeyong growing Poison Ivy and his iconic Venus Flytraps to deter them, while Kun, aided by Jaemin and Dongyoung, made the wards even more complex and inscribed with counteractive measures. After every attack they shore up defenses, adding more when they come up with new ideas. It’s not the most fun way to live, but they’re still alive, so. 

Mark wonders if this is what really happened to his parents. Were they both Black Eyed Ones, or was it only one of them, or was it someone else down the family line? Maybe Mark was the oddity, the one who caused their death. 

“Psst. Mark hyung, psssst.”

Mark glances at his alarm clock. 4:30am. He shuts his eyes again and faces the wall. 

“Mark hyuuuung.” Someone is poking his arm, calling his name repeatedly in what seems like an attempt to be quiet. Mark almost doesn’t have the heart to tell them the rest of the room is probably awake by now. 

Sighing, Mark rolls over again, opening his eyes to tell whoever it is to go back to bed. Instead, he meets Jisung’s terrified gaze and immediately sits up. “Jisung-ah, are you ok? What’s wrong?”

Jisung bites his lip, his reaper cloak pulled over his head. He never, ever lets the cloak appear if he can help it, the scythe on his back even less so. Jisung’s hands are trembling as they gently brush Mark’s which is when Mark scrambles out of bed, following Jisung outside. He really hopes this isn’t what he thinks it is, but Jisung has always come to Mark when he’s had an. Accident. With his abilities. Mark really, really hopes it isn’t Donghyuck, again.

Instead of heading into one of the bedrooms like Mark expects, Jisung leads him outside, tugging at his hood nervously. There’s a group of people at the gate, hollering and chucking torches at the barrier, but that’s nothing new so Mark ignores them as he follows Jisung across the lawn to the pond. Sicheng is curled around Yuta’s tree in full fox form as he often does, but his body remains motionless as Mark and Jisung approach, all nine tails limp. Jisung points and Mark sees it, the leaves slowly blackening at the top of the Sugi tree. This was not Jisung’s doing.

Mark sucks in a breath, first checking Sicheng’s pulse, then running his hand across the bark of the tree. Emotions whisper to him, hurt, pain, suffering, and an unnatural pulse responds to his touch, twisted and evil and so repulsive that Mark rips his hand away. 

“What is it?” Jisung whispers, his scythe in one hand. His expression is calm but when Mark looks at him, he feels an overwhelming wave of panic. Mark pauses, fingers brushing the side of his head where, sure enough, he’s forgotten his glasses. He’s just glad Jisung is more or less immune to the effect by now, instead turning back to touch the tree again. 

“I’m. Not sure.” Mark lets his fingers brush the bark, flinching as another leaf withers and falls from Yuta’s tree. The sense of wrongness flutters underneath his fingers and Mark swallows hard. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” Jisung hesitantly pokes Sicheng’s ear which flops lifelessly against his head. He’s a creature of darkness, like Mark, more receptive to the imbalances that none of the others can even perceive. “It’s evil, twisted. I want it to go away.”

One of Taeyong’s newly grown Venus Flytraps goes up in flames, spitting out the person it had trapped and flailing angrily. Mark wants nothing more than to put out the fire, but the older kids had forbidden them from going near the gate at night. 

Hesitantly, Mark lets his suppressed powers flow through his eyes, wincing at the burst of feedback he gets. Sicheng’s aura is intertwined with Yuta’s, as Huli Jings and Kodamas have a unique symbiotic relationship, but the red ribbons overlapping them have Mark blushing and looking away. He barely manages to catch sight of a pulsing thread strangling part of Yuta’s aura, a blackened hole to the right like his aura has been stabbed. “There. Jisung-ah, grab my hand.”

Jisung does so without question, and his eyes widen as he looks through Mark’s eyes. “That looks like-”

“A Kappa bite,” Mark finishes.

“But they only appear if a Nian-” they both pause, a growl shaking Mark to the core. 

“Crap.”

“Language,” Mark hisses. Jisung gives him a look, then freezes as they hear the sound of grass crunching behind them. 

“Ok,” Mark quietly breaths out. “On my mark, go wake Dongyoung hyung.”

“I’m not leaving you here by yourself,” Jisung protests, flinching as a branch cracks. Mark keeps his eyes firmly on the younger. 

“Dongyoung hyung is a Fae. He should have no problem-”

The Nian roars and Mark breaks off, squeezing Jisung’s hand and shouting for him to go before darting off. Jisung disappears with a silent pop and Mark runs for his life. The Nian crashes through the undergrowth behind him, the body of a bull and the head of a lion, howling in the moonlight. There’s an answering howl that has Mark cursing, abruptly changing his path away from the small forrest. He’d forgotten Guanheng was, um, a werewolf tonight (the full moon blinks tauntingly) and he has no desire to get him caught up in this. Well. Desperate attempt at staying alive.

His magic pings and Mark rolls to the left, barely avoiding the claws aimed at his head. He quickly scrambles to his feet and heads for the beach, the waves roaring against the sand. His house slippers get caught in the sand and Mark kicks them off, his magic humming with the feeling of rightness as his feet get dirty, his pants muddy. The moon shines brightly down on them and suddenly Mark feels calm, powerful, blinking his eyes several times to get used to the magic coursing through them. Almost mindlessly, he stops, turning to face the Nian rushing towards him with an unnatural calm. 

Wiggling his toes in the sand, Mark stares down the creature, nearly laughing at the attempt the beast makes to intimidate him with its own magic. Intimidate Mark? As if a beast could so much as scratch a Black Eyed One. 

The beast falters as it gets closer, fangs glinting as it snarls, this time in fear. Mark’s eyes flash and he laughs, grabbing one of its horns. The beast howls, falling to its knees and Mark laughs and laughs, power filling him like a drug. The Nian withers away, folding like origami until it disappears. There’s a flapping of wings, and Dongyoung jumps to the ground just as it disappears entirely. Johnny lands behind him, looking similarly shocked. Mark tilts his head and he looks away from Mark’s gaze, Dongyoung barely managing to hold it. 

“Black Eyed One,” Dongyoung says, like he’s in the Fae court. Mark feels hazy, like he’s watching his body move and speak for itself as it turns to face Dongyoung. 

“Fae Child.”

“The Nian is gone,” Dongyoung continues stiffly, his glamor dropping in the wake of Mark’s power. “You are safe.”

“Am I?” Mark hums. “There is still a mob just outside these gates, desperate for blood. Do you call that safe?”

“Black Eyed-”

“I really find it appalling that you sit here and accept this,” Mark’s mouth moves by itself. “However, I understand you’ve done what you can, so let me fix this for you.”

Johnny’s head whips up and Dongyoung starts forward. “Wait-”

Mark raises his finger, lets it brush over his lips, eyeing just where he wants to strike. He feels the built up energy in his chest zing across his forearm, desperate for escape. “Here you go, little one,” Mark tells it sweetly, and releases it.

Jisung pops out of nowhere and Mark hisses as he grabs his arm and points it just slightly upwards. The bolt of black energy shoots across the sky and explodes above the villagers, resulting in shrieks of terror as they scramble back. Just as quickly Jisung wraps him in a hug, his scythe strapped over his back. Mark blinks rapidly, his mind suddenly clearing and Dongyoung grabs him by the shoulders, nudging Jisung away and eyes glowing a dangerous blue. 

“Hyung?” Mark asks, then stops breathing as he realizes what’s happened. He wrenches out of Dongyoung’s grip and covers his eyes, stumbling backwards.

“Wait, Mark-ah,” Johnny calls, English falling from his tongue in what would have been comforting in any other situation. 

Mark shakes his head rapidly, focusing on pushing and pushing and _ pushing _ his magic down until Mark feels nothing except his dirty feet and pain in his eyes. “I, I need my glasses, did either of you bring them?”

“No, we. We didn’t know you didn’t have them,” Johnny says quietly, his hand brushing Mark’s.

Jisung gently puts a hand on his shoulder and Mark lets himself be led back to the house, keeping his eyes squeezed shut and hands clasped firmly over them. There’s a steadily building murmur that turns into panicked shouts as they get closer. Mark stumbles as Dongyoung and Johnny suddenly go running past them, Jisung’s grip tightening on his arm. 

Mark doesn’t dare open his eyes. “What’s happening?”

Jisung audibly swallows, his fingers flexing against Mark’s arm. “Um. Sicheng hyung and Yuta hyung aren’t waking up.”

("-never happened before," Taeil is whispering. "An attack, within our walls-"

"-didn't see it coming," Dejun sounds distressed. "I don't understand. Why didn't I _see_ it _coming_?")

Mark stills as fear wraps around him, blanketing his senses.

“Taeyong hyung is trying to heal Yuta’s tree, but-”

“There’s nowhere for the darkness to go,” Mark finishes. He wonders if he’s somehow stolen Dejun’s inheritance, because suddenly, he knows everything that’s about to happen.

Jisung’s hand tightening around his arm is all the warning he gets before someone attempts to shove him to the ground. Jisung stumbles with him, barely managing to keep the two of them upright. 

“What did you do?” the voice hisses, and Mark knew who it was going to be before it even happened.

“Donghyuck-” Jeno’s voice says reproachfully.

There’s another shove, and this time Mark trips over a rock, just like earlier in the day except now it’s an attempt made in malice, his back hitting someone’s chest. He keeps his eyes squeezed shut, refusing to undo years of effort that finally let the others relax around him. Something hisses and Mark realizes it’s Jaehyun’s chest he bumped into, the elder putting a careful hand on Mark’s shoulder. “Donghyuck, back off, it wasn’t his fault, or anyone’s fault for that matter,” Jaehyun says. The snakes hiss in agreement. 

Donghyuck scoffs. Mark resists the urge to cover his eyes (just in case they accidentally flutter open). “Then what else-”

“It was a Kappa,” Taeyong says, sounding like he’s stumbling. Jisung’s hand carefully grabs Mark’s, pulling him back slightly. There’s a brush of cloth against his ankle and Jisung’s scythe rattles on his back. “We need to get inside, there’s a Nian somewhere out here-”

“Mark took care of it,” Dongyoung interrupts. 

There’s a sudden silence, oppressive in a way that has Mark’s fingers twitching. He can’t be sure since his eyes are closed, but Mark guesses the entire household is gathered in the grass, and all twenty-one of them silent for once is not a good sign. 

“Mark?” Taeyong eventually ventures. “What do you, what do you mean?”

“His glasses,” someone whispers (sounding an awful lot like Yangyang). 

“I, uh, something woke me up,” Jisung hesitantly speaks up, his grip on Mark tightening. “Something dark. I thought I had, um, had another accident but it wasn’t-wasn’t something I recognized. So I got Mark hyung, because,” Jisung pauses and Mark’s heart thuds painfully. _ Because he thought Mark might have done it. _ “Because. Anyways, we came out and it, the darkness, was there, and then the Nian-“

“What matters is that it’s gone,” Johnny says firmly. “And we need to figure out how to counter the poison in Yuta’s tree before it hurts him and Sicheng.”

There’s a shuffling of feet. Mark knows where this is going. 

“We need a conduit, something acting as a valve to funnel out the darkness,” Kun finally says. “Otherwise any healing we try and do is just going to backfire.”

“I can try and contact my, er, people,” Ten says, a clinking sound letting Mark know that he’s fiddling with one of the many rings adorning his fingers. Probably the subtle gold one with a hieroglyph sat in the center of it, glinting mysteriously whenever light touches it. Even after years of living with them, no one knows where Ten originally came from. “Someone has to have something like that.”

“We don’t have time for that, half of the leaves have already fallen off,” Johnny counters.

“Then what do you suggest,” Ten shoots back, more aggravated than he would have been should someone else have said it. “Because you’re not offering up-“

“I can do it,” Jisung pipes up before Mark can.

“No,” Taeyong says immediately. “I won’t allow that.”

Jisung’s hand falls away and Mark freezes, afraid to move. His eyes are still closed, leaving him feeling like he’s alone in the middle of nothingness. “Hyung, I am darkness-“

“Lowkey a Batman quote,” Jaemin mutters, yelping when someone, most likely Renjun, smacks his arm.

“-it won’t affect me like it’ll affect you.”

“I wasn’t giving you an option.”

Jaehyun’s sleeve brushes his as he steps forward. “Then how about me? I’ve got more protection-“

“No! This isn’t some exchange, I’m not poisoning anyone in exchange for someone else.”

“I mean, technically I’m already dead?” Jungwoo says in what he probably thinks is a nonchalant tone, but Mark knows him well enough to hear the waver in his voice. “So if anyone’s going to do this-”

“Not a chance,” Dongyoung growls. “I’d sooner hop the fence and give myself up to the clutches of the villagers.”

“Don’t coddle me,” Jungwoo hisses. Mark flinches back at the anger in his tone. “I’m older than you, Fae Child-”

“And I am a royal of the Fae Court,” Dongyoung retorts. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I think we’re getting a little off topic? Honestly, my scales are basically indestructible, so-”

“Don’t even _ think _ about it-”

“Shut _ up _, Jaemin-”

“Over _ my dead body _-”

Mark feels frozen, the grounds breaking out into chaos like moments before. The grass is wet beneath his muddy feet and his pants tug uncomfortably at his legs. Even with his eyes closed he can feel Taeyong’s anger and worry, Jisung’s fright and determination, even Sicheng’s panicked aura as he attempts to fight back the Kappa poison running through Yuta’s tree and their shared bond. Guanheng must have arrived at one point because he’s snarling above the din, growling when Ten snips back at him. This is stupid. Mark knows what needs to be done.

He opens his eyes. “Enough.”

Everyone freezes. Mark blinks a few times, gaze traveling from Yukhei wrapped around Renjun and the smoke trailing from Yangyang’s nostrils. When Mark steps forward, they shuffle backwards. Each step feels harder than the last but Mark slowly makes his way to the tree, avoiding eye contact best he can while keeping his hold over twenty other people. _Move_, Mark thinks, and they take another step back. Kun is still crouched down by Sicheng’s side but it’s obvious the effort it takes him not to back away even with his immunity to auras. 

Mark looks at him. “I’ll be the conduit. You know it won’t hurt me.”

Kun grits his teeth, his eyes darting to Taeyong’s rapid head shakes and back again. He slowly nods. “Then you listen to me. Do exactly as I say.”

“I will.”

Kun stares directly into Mark’s eyes as he grabs his hand, guiding it to the now visible mark on the Sugi tree. The bark feels brittle, and leaves flutter off their branches as black as the night sky. “I’ll guide the energy out, but you need to remember to stay open. Accept the mergers, connect with them. You’re a stream bed, let it flow over you, not through you. Keep your eyes on an anchor, someone to keep you grounded.”

Mark nods. Without his glasses all Mark can see is Yuta’s struggling purple aura and Sicheng’s orange one wrapping around it desperately and attempting to fight off the black strings encasing them both. He looks away. An anchor. 

Unwittingly, his eyes lock on Donghyuck. For once, the younger stares straight back, spine rigid, wings fluttering angrily. His pajamas are thin, the cotton being tugged by the slight breeze. His eyes seem to challenge Mark, brown locking with black. Mark takes a deep breath. “Ready.”

“Remember to breath,” Kun says, and then the pain starts.


	2. Under the Willow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His body feels foreign, dark energy swirling beneath the surface, the voice coming back during his weakest moments and filling his mind with visions of horror. Sometimes, when he thinks of getting up, his fingers spark with black flecks of magic and Mark lays back down, staying there for hours without moving until they stop. His bedsheets are scorched. The smell of burning fabric is a constant scent. At some point the rising of the sun and the passing of the moon become indistinguishable, lost as he is in his own head. Mark just wants to sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y’all don’t even know the number of times I’ve read “The silence was suffocating.” Truly, this has been a work in progress. I hope it was as enjoyable for y’all to read as it was for me to write and that the, like, 6 month waiting period was worth it.

The silence is suffocating. 

The entire house is dead quiet, faint clanking from the kitchen where Jaemin is stress baking the only sign of life. Mark is alone in his room. Jeno is two floors below keeping Jaemin company and Yangyang is flying several stories above the house, keeping watch over the wrecked gate none of them have bothered to fix. Chenle isn’t allowed anywhere in Mark’s proximity, his nature and Mark’s sudden increase in power making him susceptible to everything Mark says. Everything. He crawled across the table when Mark quietly asked for the salt. Mark hasn’t seen him since. Jisung sometimes peaks into his room to say a quick hi but leaves just as quick, his cloak and scythe flickering to life in Mark’s mere presence. 

Renjun’s fixed Moomin sits in the same place on Jeno’s shelf it's been for the past week. 

Mark hasn’t really seen anyone except Kun since the week previous. Sicheng and Yuta are recovering, according to the elder, but can’t physically leave Yuta’s sugi tree. Kun, Dongyoung, Taeil and Taeyong are working around the clock to heal the tree, their defenses left broken in the wake of the Nian attack. Which is why patrols are set up, rocks piled in front of the gate in a poor substitute of their usual wards that were ripped to shreds by Mark’s magic. 

Mark spends most days staring at the ceiling. His fingers tingle unpleasantly as he systematically focuses on pushing his magic down. The ripped pants Mark keeps in the back of his closet for when he needs the comfort of his nature are tossed out, his feet so clean they slide on the wood floors. His glasses find a permanent perch on his nose, even when he sleeps. The little voices in his head whisper terrible things to him and Mark breathes out, ignoring them until they become muffled. 

Kun comes by once a day, his clothes rumpled like he hasn’t slept, bags under his eyes as dark as Mark’s. He hugs Mark and Mark tries not to cling back too desperately in the wake of his self-imposed, touch-starved exile. 

While Mark holds onto his arm Kun scans over Mark’s aura with his magic, each day siphoning a bit more of the darkness from the Kappa’s poison out of him and into one of his indestructible glass bottles. (The poison that should have flowed out of Mark and not through him. The poison that, somehow, weaved its way into Mark’s magic and destabilized it). He stoppers it with a cork and slips it into the folds of the cloak he’s taken to wearing. According to Jeno, the bottles disappear into the depths of Kun’s magic closet where not even Jisung, Yangyang and Chenle have dared to snoop. 

On the second day after Kun leaves Mark dares to peak outside of his room. He catches Donghyuck’s eye as he folds his wings, crawling in through one of the windows. Donghyuck takes one look at him and jumps back out the window. Mark hasn’t left his room since. The look of terror on the younger’s face lingers in Mark’s conscious and unconscious mind, permeating his dreams with nightmares. 

His body feels foreign, dark energy swirling beneath the surface, the voice coming back during his weakest moments and filling his mind with visions of horror. Sometimes, when he thinks of getting up, his fingers spark with black flecks of magic and Mark lays back down, staying there for hours without moving until they stop. His bedsheets are scorched. The smell of burning fabric is a constant scent. At some point the rising of the sun and the passing of the moon become indistinguishable, lost as he is in his own head. Mark just wants to sleep. 

His reprieve comes Thursday morning. Kun finishes siphoning the poison out of Mark’s body, tucking the bottle into his cloak as usual. Then he turns to Mark with a relieved smile. Mark quickly sits up. “What is it?”

“You’re officially poison free,” Kun announces, pleased. “Your inheritance should settle within a day or two, now that the foreign antibody is out of your system.”

Mark feels boneless, flopping into Kun’s chest. The elder lets out a startled laugh and his arms automatically wrap around Mark. “It’s really gone?” Mark asks.

Kun runs his fingers through Mark’s hair. “All gone,” Kun affirms. 

Mark lets out a disbelieving huff but allows his mind to finally relax, his glasses pressing unpleasantly into his nose. The voice fades into the recesses of his mind, quieted, but not silenced. 

At Jeno’s urging Mark comes down to dinner that night. There are socks covering his feet, pants so long he trips over the hem and a hoodie hiding his face from view, his glasses firmly in place. The room is quiet when Mark enters, but as soon as the others catch sight of him, any remaining murmuring is silenced. Jeno tugs on Mark’s arm, pulling him into the seat between him and Jaemin. Jaemin slides a plate in front of Mark and turns to Jungwoo. “Hyung, we should go on a walk tomorrow. There’s a patch of really pretty wildflowers we could pick.”

Jungwoo smiles, messing with the flower tucked behind his ear. Judging by the blush spreading steadily over Dongyoung’s face, Mark has a fair idea of who it’s from. “Of course! The Magnolia’s are especially beautiful this year.”

Slowly, the murmurs start up again and Mark feels his shoulders slowly draw back down. Still, he doesn’t dare look up, instead carefully picking through his food. 

Jeno sits next to him in solitary silence. They listen to the conversations happening around them, the food on the table disappearing. It takes Mark a few minutes to notice the eyes on him and he finally looks up. Chenle sends him a hesitant wave from the other end of the table. Mark gives him a small smile and ducks his head again. Guilt claws at his heart.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” Jeno tells him quietly. Yukhei is stubbornly insisting that the fish in Renjun’s pond are underfed. Renjun rolls his eyes and points out how large they’ve gotten in the one month he’s let Yukhei feed them.

Mark feels like running back upstairs to hide.

Eventually they clear the plates and settle back into their chairs, eyeing Taeyong expectantly. He stands up looking more frazzled than usual. His hair is speckled with blue petals that he hasn’t bothered to brush away and there’s even a streak of dirt across his cheek. He’s drowning in the light brown hoodie Mark recognizes to be Jaehyun’s. “Thank you all for being so patient. I know it’s been a long week, but you’ve all helped tremendously. There’s good news and bad news, so I’ll start with the bad first.”

Taeyong gestures to Taeil. The elder stands with a sigh. “Unfortunately, the gates are beyond repair. I could reverse time on them but they would be thin and brittle. We’ll have to make due with the rock wall barricading the entrance until Kai hyung pops by with a replacement. I’m also running low on pearls, so Jeno, Yukhei, your ban is lifted for the time being. I need you to go into the ocean and find me some more or I won’t be fixing anything.”

Yukhei and Jeno discreetly fist bump.

Dongyoung stands up next, his glamor flickering. Mark feels vertigo from the shifts his face makes. “I also have bad news. It seems like there was already a hole in the wards before, uh, the rest came down.”

Mark shrinks in his seat, guilt laying on his shoulders. Jaemin pats his hand carefully.

“Where was it?” Johnny asks. His feathers are ruffled and his tail flicks nervously but his voice is calm and soothing. “The hole. How did that happen? I thought only you guys could take the wards down?”

“It was by the wall, just outside Guanheng’s forest. I don’t know how it got there.”

“What if,” Guanheng says hesitantly, “what if it was because of me?”

Mark glances at him. Guanheng looks like he’s spent the last week in the forest, twigs in his hair and bags under his eyes. His clothes are the only thing clean about him, so Mark guesses he was wolfed out for the better part of that. Ten puts a hand on his shoulder, his numerous rings glinting. His ears twitch at the same time Guanheng’s do, and his tail moves nervously behind him. Mark doesn’t remember the last time he’s seen Ten this unsettled.

“It wasn’t,” Ten says, his voice resolute. “There’s no way. I’ve seen all sorts of wards and broken wards. This isn’t something werewolf claws could cut a hole in. This was something more.”

“Oh, wonderful,” Jaemin mutters from Mark’s other side.

“The good news,” Taeyong cuts in over the chatter. “The good news is that Kai hyung should be able to swing by with his crew within the next week so we can fix the gate. Until then, we’ll keep rotating patrols. I think this goes without saying, but I’m very proud. Of all of you.”

Taeyong’s gaze lingers on him and Mark looks away.

“Right,” Johnny claps his hands together to break the awkward silence. “Who wants to try the cookies Jaemin and I made?”

It’s easy to slip away. Mark’s always been good at blending into the background, to going unseen when he wants to. On top of that, he’s been pushing his aura down so much in the last week that, paired with his glasses, he doubts anyone feels him pass by. 

The garden is still a mess. There’s claw marks in the dirt, plants ripped up and torn from the ground. Mark keeps his eyes on the path. 

He hears murmurs as he gets closer to Yuta’s sugi tree. Sicheng is pacing around the base of it, his ears and all 9 tails flitting back and forth. Yuta is gesturing at him, back up against his tree. They both freeze when Mark comes into view. Mark wonders if it’s too late to flee.

“Mark!” Yuta exclaims, going to stand up. His legs immediately go out from under him, but Sicheng is there to catch him before he falls. “Mark, come over here! I haven’t seen you all week.”

Mark bites his lip but walks over. The closer he gets, the more he can feel the excess magic humming in the air. It’s not malicious, exactly, but Mark wouldn’t call it comfortable. 

Yuta keeps making grabby hands at him so Mark obligingly leans down to give him a hug. He stumbles forward when Sicheng drapes himself over his back, wrapping his arms around his waist. 

“We owe you,” Sicheng says, tightening his grip. “Thank you for saving us.”

“I love you soooo much,” Yuta says, grinning when Mark tries to squirm away. “Dongsaengieee, you’re our hero.”

“Oh my god, stop please,” Mark whines. In a combined effort, Yuta and Sicheng manage to pull him to the ground, smothering him in hugs. “Why are you guys like this?”

“Because we looooove you,” Yuta sings. 

“Yes,” Sicheng agrees. “And you smell like sadness.”

“I’m, uh, no I don’t?” From the unimpressed look the pair gives him, Mark gets the impression that he wasn’t very convincing. 

“It’s ok to be sad, Mark,” Yuta says in a philosophical tone, tucking Mark’s head into his shoulder. Sicheng tugs his legs over his lap so Mark is sprawled across both of them. He feels like a small child. “Sadness is good for the soul so then you can be happy later.”

“Hmm.” Mark feels drowsy all of a sudden. “Hyung, are you guys feeling better?”

“Much,” Sicheng replies. “Even if I can’t transform all the way.”

“You can’t?”

“Nope! He’s stuck in between,” Yuta says cheerfully. “It’s really cute.”

“You’re really cute,” Sicheng huffs. “I mean, wait-“

“Sichengie, you think I’m cute?” Yuta looks delighted. 

Sicheng grumbles, his cheeks turning bright red. 

Mark dozes, feeling more content than he has the entire week. Someone’s hand is in his hair, running their fingers gently through the strands. One of Sicheng’s tails brushes against his arm. The pair of them are back to murmuring. Mark catches bits and pieces as he goes in and out of sleep.

“-omthing more than what we think-“

“-vious. A Nian, make a hole like that? I don’t-“

A low growl rumbles in Sicheng’s chest. Mark snuggles closer. 

“-so late at night. Maybe-“

“Even the villagers wouldn’t-“

“-my tree. We didn’t notice-“

“-the Hunters.”

That wakes Mark up. “Hunters?”

The hand in his hair freezes. Mark blinks the sleep out of his eyes and sits up. Yuta looks guilty and Sicheng is biting his lip. Another one of Yuta’s leaves falls, fluttering from its branch and laying itself on the burned grass beneath them. 

“It’s just a theory,” Sicheng says slowly. “Nothing is for certain.”

“What is it?” Mark asks. 

Sicheng and Yuta exchange looks. Yuta breaks first. “Ok. We’ll tell you, but don’t go spreading it around. It’s just a thought.”

Who would want to listen to Mark, anyways? Still, he nods.

“Right. So, we were thinking-Sicheng and I-that it was really weird there was a hole in the wards.”

“Yes,” Sicheng adds helpfully. “Really weird.”

“Yes, thank you. The wards were created by some of the strongest people I’ve ever met. On top of that, they’re layered. All sorts of different magic protections were combined. For someone to break through them, they would have to be familiar with all of them. And you know Ten’s hieroglyphs are nothing to be messed with.”

Mark knows. When Ten has first arrived, he’d spent weeks weaving his magic into the others, tracing the air with characters Mark had never seen before. Mark and Jaemin may or may not have spent those weeks trailing after him and trying to discern them. 

“So, who is familiar with all types of magic?” Yuta says pointedly.

“Hunters,” Sicheng finishes. 

“Yes, Hunters. But it doesn’t make sense that they would come after us. Their bylaws are strict and none of us have done anything to disturb the peace.”

But Mark did. Mark fired at innocent villagers not even a week ago. He opens his mouth to point that out.

Yuta puts a hand over his lips. “Ah-bah-bah. Mark, you may have done, uh, whatever it was you did-“

“No one will tell us anything,” Sicheng grumbles.

“-but you didn’t hurt anybody. As it were, you kept your powers within the boundaries of our home.”

“So there is no reason for them to come after us,” Sicheng says. “Unless someone tipped them off-“

One of Renjun’s Koi fish peaks its head out to stare at Sicheng. Sicheng stares back, losing his train of thought. Yuta sighs but picks up where he left off. 

“That’s just a thought. Last time the Exo repair crew came by, they said there was some political things happening with people with inheritance. Sooooo?”

Yuta looks at Mark expectantly. “So maybe something happened?” Mark says slowly.

“Bingo,” Yuta says. “Something big. Maybe they’re being paid off to come after us. Maybe the government is trying to quietly silence us. I dunno, there could be lots of reasons. But, honestly, I doubt the Nian is the last of it.”

“Mark! There you are.”

All three of their heads snap up, Sicheng abandoning his staring contest. Taeyong is coming down the path with two takeout boxes balanced in his arms. Mark silently slides out of Yuta and Sicheng’s laps, ignoring their concerned gazes. 

“I’m just bringing Yuta and Sicheng dinner,” Taeyong continues, not seeming to notice the awkward atmosphere. “You should come back inside. Jaemin desperately wants your opinion on his cookies. Says they’re much better than Johnny’s.”

“Oh,” Mark says. “Ok.”

The ease he’d felt lying with Yuta and Sicheng evaporates and his shoulders hunch once again. Avoiding Taeyong’s questioning gaze he hurries back down the path. The closer he gets to the house the worse he feels. The voices start hissing, whispering to him. Mark firmly ignores them. 

~.~

The castle was made of white marble. Mark reveled in awe of its grandiose nature, its spires prodding the clouds and archways smooth and powerful. Trees of oak and red bark stood proudly along the white sand path, their branches reaching triumphantly for the heavens.

“Come now, we wouldn’t want you to be late.” 

There was a snake wrapped around his shoulders, its tongue flickering against the shell of Mark’s ear. Yet he found himself calm and almost detached, simply nodding in agreement. The snake let out a gurgle like laugh, winding around Mark’s neck until they were eye to eye.

“Theressss much to be ssssseen, young princeling,” said the snake. Its eyes were a startling silver, like the stars had converged with the moon to make a home in the beast’s soul. “Come and follow me.”

With that the snake released its hold around Mark’s neck and fell to the ground. It started forward with glee and Mark hastened to follow, lest he be left behind. 

“Ssssseriouss...isss it sssucculent?...ssssurprissse we were...ssssso lonely we wass…”

The snake muttered to itself, seemingly forgetting Mark’s presence. The human boy still found himself following closely behind, as if he were bound to this fate and helpless to stave it. 

For all its glory, the castle looked more and more distressed the closer they got. Where once there must have been a flowing river there were only scabs across the earth, deep and jagged. The marble was weathered with age, more of a yellow hue, cracked along its sensible edges. The sun flickered in the sky, showing its hesitance at hovering over such a place. Mark found the great stone roads in the distance lacking in grandeur, the moat dry and fractured. Already the drawbridge drew near, their pace hastened by the snake’s impatientness.

“Hurry up, willsss you? Haven’t got all daysss.”

Mark stumbled upon the realization that he was not wearing his glasses. Beyond that, his normal clothes were gone and in their place were the ripped, shredded clothes he had disposed of earlier that week. But he could not bring himself to worry over it. Instead, he watched the vines curling around the castle with fascination, their spines like big, horrible teeth. 

The drawbridge was lowered and the snake led them across, its scales glinting red and gold in the sunlight. Before long they found themselves at the foot of a statue, a woman with smiling, soulless eyes. Her gaze enraptured him and Mark could only remove himself from their brilliance when the snake nipped at his leg in reminder of their hurry. 

Before the statue sat a figure, strong and lithe, like a ghost in the night, somehow shrouded from sight in full daylight. Mark was unable to resist the urge to bow at the figures feet, his heart thudding in his throat. 

“Rise,” said the Voice, echoing in such a way that made determining their gender nye impossible. Mark rose, hands clasped before him by some unseen force. His body was not for him to control, not in this realm. His concern over this fact was oddly muted. The figure stepped forward and, placing a finger on Mark’s brow, spoke so softly that Mark strained to hear. “My child. It has been many years since you’ve awoken. I’ve been so lonely here, awaiting your return. Why have you abandoned me so?”

“Master,” Mark said, his mouth moving without his consent. “I apologize. I encountered resistance with this one, but he should trouble me no longer. He no longer needs me - his fear of himself is so strong that I highly doubt we will run into issues during the procedure.”

“How glorious,” declared the being. “Indeed, you have performed me a great service. Bring him closer.”

Mark shuffled forward until he was eye to eye with the being. An unnatural calm settled over his body. 

“Like the Trojans with their horse, I impart to you a gift,” murmured the being, running his thumb across Mark’s forehead. “Serve me well, my child, and you will be rewarded with such joy you have never known.”

With that, he breathed upon Mark and for a brief moment, he could see the being, weighted with broken wings and golden eyes that seemed to house centuries of life. Yet at the very center-

“It is done,” said the being.

-at the very center of its eyes laid a cold presence, something dark and familiar. 

“Master, could I have just one bite?” whittled the snake.

It was like looking at a mirror. Mark’s hand slowly crept up his own face to where his eyes were devoid of their usual protection. “You’re like me,” he said aloud.

The being stiffened. “Duolos, take him home.”

“With joy,” sang the snake, and lunged for Mark’s face.

Mark awoke with the feeling he had forgotten something terribly important.

~.~

As the week goes on, Mark feels worse and worse. It’s like the time Mark and Jisung had been locked in a room for an entire day by accident. Their Traits had unsettled one another to the point that he had itched his skin raw, convinced there was something beneath the surface. He keeps glancing around the corners of the house, expecting something to be waiting for him. 

The anticipation is horrible.

On the bright side, Jeno and Yangyang move back in. Chenle is still staying in the Jisung-Jaemin-Dongyoung room, but Mark already feels better. Jeno shrieks excitedly when he sees the Moomin on his shelf, declaring that he must give it back to Renjun right that second. He disappears in a flurry of limbs, leaving Mark and Yangyang to exchange looks. 

Yangyang sighs, flopping onto Mark’s bed. He easily switches over to English being yet another one of the multilingual members of their house. “Man, I missed our room. It was fun messing with Xiaojun ge and all, but he and Kun ge are way too serious all of the time.” He doesn’t add the obvious. That this is, essentially, what he considers his territory. To those with dragon inheritance, your territory is almost as important as your family. It must have hurt him to stay away. Not that he forced anyone to stay out, but Mark feels bad all the same.

“You do anything interesting?” Mark asks instead. He takes a seat at the edge of the bed, laughing when Yangyang worms his way into his lap.

“Pets,” Yangyang demands. Mark runs his fingers through the younger’s hair, laughing when he lets out that distinct dragon purr. “Much better. Hmm, I went to bother Jaehyun ge earlier. His snakes always say such funny things. We had a debate about rats. _ They _ like them, but _ I _ think they’re disgusting. Guanheng ge and I made flower crowns with Jungwoo ge and Ten ge and I spent a whole day doodling. It was so cool, Ten ge made the drawings float off the pages. Ummm, Taeil ge went grocery shopping at f(x), you know, where Amber noona used to work, and bought me eucalyptus candies.”

“I thought Taeyong hyung made some for you?”

Yangyang makes a face. “Yeah, but they taste like the bottom of Chenle’s shoes.”

Is it bad Mark isn’t surprised? “I’m not sure if I want to know how you know that or not.”

“Probably not.”

Dragon ears are funny Mark muses. He runs his finger over the top of Yangyang’s, the scales glinting in the candle light (because Chenle had insisted on the candle chandelier for the room. Something about ‘better energies’. Mark doesn’t want to know). Yangyang hums. Something in Mark relaxes and the voices abruptly vanish. Mark freezes. Yangyang whines and Mark dazedly starts running his fingers through his hair again.

Jeno pokes his head back in. “Mark hyung, I love you.”

“I love you, too?” 

Jeno beams, bounding into the room and flopping over Yangyang’s outstretched legs. Yangyang growls and Jeno hisses back without blinking an eye. Yangyang quickly deflates in the face of Jeno’s eye smile. “Jaemin finally forgave me for breaking Renjun’s Moomin since I gave it back. Now he’ll finally go swimming with me in the ocean! His sea serpent form is so cute.”

Yangyang sighs long sufferingly. “You see what I’ve had to live with for the past week?”

“Like you’re one to talk,” Jeno pouts. 

Yangyang turns bright red. “Shut up!”

Still, even this isn’t enough to let Mark relax. _ Something’s coming _ , his powers seem to whisper. _ You can’t escape it _.

Mark doesn’t stray far from the house, the furthest he’s willing to go being Yuta’s sugi tree. When Yukhei and Jeno go to the sea, accompanied by Jaemin’s blue sea serpent form, Mark stares at the rippling waves until they emerge hours later. Guanheng’s forest suddenly seems to be filled with menacing shadows. Even playing with Taeyong’s nine-foot-tall venus fly traps loses its fun. Mark feels trapped in a way he hasn’t felt since the orphanage. Like he’s coiled so tightly he’s bound to burst at any moment. 

There’s also the fact that half of the house can’t relax around him. Renjun does his best to smile at Mark, but his umbrella pops to life whenever Renjun so much as spots Mark. Ten makes a point of hugging Mark at least once a day, but his tail always flickers nervously behind his back. Dongyoung is more or less immune to Mark, but he still randomly puffs pink sparkles when Mark startles him. It’s not like anyone wants to be scared of Mark. It’s just inevitable. 

Still, it’s nice they put in the effort. Kun pulls Mark into his and Dejun’s shared room for tea one afternoon. He’s dressed in another one of those fitted coats he seems to like so much, this one a dark grey and lined with pockets. Dejun is still in his silk pajamas. One of the wardrobe doors is ajar and Mark spots what looks like shelves of potion bottles and a space that shouldn’t physically fit inside of it before Kun taps it shut. Dejun smiles and offers Mark a cookie, but his eyes are swirling grey and he seems to be half somewhere else. 

Johnny spends an entire afternoon speaking English with Mark. They play video games and eat Oreos and peanuts and watermelon and Johnny even lets Mark brush his feathers. His wings remain tense the entire time Mark’s fingers run through them but Johnny forces himself to stay still until Mark is finished. Donghyuck’s bed remains empty the duration of Mark’s stayed. He tries to ignore the sinking in his gut.

Jungwoo drags Mark with him and Jaemin to collect flowers. Jungwoo makes Mark a flower crown dotted with blue daisies and pink phlox subulata. Jaemin curls himself around Mark’s arm and naps.

Taeil takes one look at Mark’s eye bags and gently pulls him into his room, wrapping him in blankets and cuddling him until he falls asleep. 

Mark feels, well, not great, but better. He tries his best to put the voices in his mind to rest and even ventures to the edge of Renjun’s pond. 

Then the shadows start to have faces. 

Mark’s padding to the bathroom at about midnight when it happens. At first Mark thinks the hissing is Jaehyun’s snakes or possibly Jaemin going for a night time slither. He shrugs and turns the corner, his bathrobe brushing his ankles. 

He comes face to face with a demon.

Mark yelps, stumbling back until his back hits the wall. The demon follows him, tilting its head curiously. Mark quickly realizes that the demon is made of darkness, of shadows. Its head consists of sharp angles, its eyes slanted. Its arms are thin and jagged, its legs longer than a normal human’s. Mark presses back into the wallpaper as it leans closer. It blinks, frowns, then it disappears. 

Mark sinks to the floor. 

Guanheng finds him the next morning. He looks as tired as Mark feels, his eyes darting across the room nervously. Dongyoung slides another plate of pancakes on the table. Chenle steals Jisung’s milk glass.

“You saw them, too, didn’t you?” Guanheng asks him. There’s an argument at the other half of the table, loud enough that Mark has to lean in to hear Guanheng properly. 

Mark laughs nervously. “Saw what?”

“The shadows. The evil things.” Guanheng is shivering even in his thick wool sweater. It’s the middle of summer. “They tried to grab me. I heard you fall about the same time they left me alone.”

So it wasn’t Mark’s inheritance acting up. “They tried to grab you?”

Guanheng scoots closer to Mark on the bench, leaning into his side. Mark’s arm goes around his shoulder automatically before he can think better of it, but Guanheng just settles more into Mark’s half embrace. “They did. I slashed one with my claws and they finally left. I think they were looking for something. When I first woke up they were just digging through our drawers. Yuta and Taeyong were downstairs and Yukhei was in Renjun’s room so it was just me. There were two of them. One of them disappeared, probably the one that you saw, and the other one only noticed me after the first one left.”

This isn’t something either of them knows how to deal with. “We should tell Taeyong,” Mark mutters. 

Guanheng bites his lip. “We probably should-”

The back door flies open and Yukhei nearly falls over in his haste to get through it. Jaehyun manages to grab his arm and steady him. “Renjun’s gone.”

“What?”

The breakfast is forgotten as they converge on Yukhei like a pack of hounds, panic infesting like a virus. Mark looks at Guanheng only to see him already looking back.

“They took him,” Mark breathes, his heart thudding. 

Guanheng nods slowly. His ears make an appearance nestled in his hair, his right ear twitching. His shoulders straighten resolutely. “They can’t have gotten far. Let’s go find him.”

Yukhei is white as a sheet, stuttering as he tries to explain but he keeps getting talked over. His second skin is clutched close to his chest and his shoulder shrink down by the second. “Ok,” Mark finally says. “We should still tell Taeyong.”

As it turns out, Taeyong is at the front of the group and it takes more than a little shoving to reach him. “Taeyong hyung,” Guanheng calls, squeezing in between Dongyoung and Jaehyun. Mark struggles to follow, tapping on Johnny’s shoulder to slide by. 

Taeyong turns. There are blue petals stuck in between strands of equally blue hair and they flutter to the floor with the movement. “Guanheng, now isn’t the best time. Is something else wrong?”

“Uh, yeah, several somethings,” Guanheng says. “See, there were these black demon things last night and we think they took Renjun.”

Taeyong blinks hard and turns the rest of the way to give Guanheng his full attention. “Ok, explain that first statement. And who’s we?”

Mark raises his hand. 

“Ok,” Taeyong says. “Right. Demons?”

“Demons?” Jungwoo leans closer. 

“They were these giant black, uh, things! And they tried to eat me and they scared Mark and, you know, the likelihood of those same demon things taking Renjun is kinda high? Unless he’s just hiding from Yukhei again.”

“Renjun hides from Yukhei?” Dejun asks curiously. “I thought he had a crush on him?”

Guanheng groans. “Not the point. But also yes.”

“Renjun has a crush on Yukhei?” Chenle peers over Mark’s shoulder with wide eyes. He says it rather loud and the rest of the group falls silent. 

Yukhei goes from white to red worryingly fast. “Renjun has a crush on me?”

Donghyuck groans from the other corner of the room and throws up his hands. “Now look what you’ve done.” It’s the first time he’s been in the same room as Mark since before the, uh, incident. There’s highlights in his hair and his skin is a warm bronze color, most likely from the amount of time he’s spent in the air and beneath the sun avoiding Mark. It’s not the most appropriate thought for the moment, but Mark thinks even the sun pales in comparison to his blinding beauty. 

“I’m sorry, go back to the demons,” Taeyong says. 

“What demons?” Jaemin asks.

“The demons that nearly ate me,” Guanheng declares. “They were big and sharp and made of shadows. I think.”

Yukhei’s eyes have doubled in size. “Like the ones that took Renjun?”

“Demons took Renjun?” Jisung’s scythe makes an appearance and for once he doesn’t seem to mind, his expression dark. 

“Well, they’re not demons, exactly. Unless they are? I’ve never met a demon before, so,” Guanheng shrugs. His hands are trembling and Mark quietly wraps his fingers around one of them. Guanheng squeezes back. “But they looked like they were made of shadows and had pokey limbs like sticks.”

“Well what are we still standing here for? Let’s go find him.” Dongyoung’s eyes are narrowed and he keeps puffing pink dust. 

Taeil gently wraps an arm around Yukhei’s waist and pulls him out of the claustrophobic group clump. Donghyuck aids him, wings brushing against Yukhei’s arms comfortingly, speaking lowly. Mark wishes he radiated a conforming aura. As it stands, he might have made Yukhei’s panic worse.

Yangyang is puffing smoke from his nose, the room gradually getting warmer. His tail drags across the ground menacingly as he tiptoes forward and Mark realizes what he’s about to do a second too late. “Yangyang, _ no- _“

Yangyang escapes out the door, transforming mid run and leaping into the sky in full dragon form. Johnny is quick to follow, launching himself off the ground and up, wings flapping in powerful stokes. Chenle goes to follow and Mark grabs him before he can. They’re too late to stop Donghyuck, though, who dodges Dongyoung’s arms and twists out the window and up as well. 

“Wonderful,” Taeyong growls. “Would anyone else like to do something stupid or are we all good now?”

Jaehyun makes a slashing motion across his throat from behind him and everyone else obediently shakes their heads. Sleepy-snake and busy-body stare at Mark accusingly from within Jaehyun’s hair. Mark doesn’t know what he did wrong.

“Wonderful. Let’s split into groups.”

They pair up, Guanheng getting dragged into Ten’s smothering embrace. Dejun slides up to Mark’s side, followed by Kun and, surprisingly, Yuta. 

“What are you doing here?” 

Yuta shrugs lightly, tying his jacket tightly around his waist. Sicheng is a few steps away joining Jungwoo’s group but keeps his gaze trained firmly on Yuta. “I’m not about to sit around while Renjun is being kidnapped.”

Kun opens his mouth and closes it as Dejun puts a warning hand on his forearm. 

“Alright, so here’s what’s going to happen,” Taeyong says firmly. “You stay with your group at all times. You do not go off on your own, ever. If you find them, do not engage until another group manages to find you. Under no circumstances is anyone to put themselves, their teammates, or Renjun in harm's way. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. And please, above all, be safe.”

There’s a brief moment in which Taeyong glances around the room. He takes in a shallow breath. “And I know I don’t say it much, but I love you all. We meet back here once the sun sets.”

The murmuring starts up again and Dejun tilts his head. “Ah. Ok, I’ll see you guys later. Stay safe.” 

“What-?” Kun starts, only to break off into spluttering as Dejun lands a quick peck on his cheek and goes to meet Taeyong halfway. 

“Jisung, Chenle,” Dejun calls as he goes, the younger two perking up and hurrying to follow. 

“Knew it,” Yuta tells Mark. “There’s no way Taeyong would let the kids out when something as dangerous as this was happening. Plus, Dejun would work best here as a central hub for communications and probably another layer of protection. Jisung can teleport to one of us if he sees something.”

Jisung lets out an uncharacteristic shout and Chenle downright snarls at Taeyong, the older spreading his hands placating. Dejun looks resigned, but he had probably seen this coming. Literally.

Kun is still frozen, his face red as a tomato. “Are you ok?” Mark ventures carefully.

“Mfghr,” Kun says.

Yuta claps his hands together. “Nice. Let’s start, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news! Chapter 3 is prewritten so there will be an update next Friday! This is probably my first and last regularly scheduled update. I considered making it all into one chapter but my head started swimming when I tried to self-beta, so. 
> 
> Also, nct q. Theories?
> 
> Kisses!  
Deedee


	3. A Bed of Grass, a Soft Green Pillow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Shadow eaters,” Kun says, tracing his fingers over gashes in the ground. “Two, rather young, one bleeding.”
> 
> “Shadow what?” Mark asks.
> 
> “Shadow eaters,” Yuta repeats. “You know, born of the souls of the demented? Like, thousands of years old?”
> 
> “N-no?”
> 
> “Oh, then yeah. Shadow eaters. Born of the souls of the demented. Thousands of years old.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY VALENTINES/JAEHYUN DAY

They begin by going to the pond. Obviously, Renjun isn’t there, but Mark picks up a faint trace of magic like the one from last night. He squints, but from behind his glasses he can’t see much of anything. Mark glances at Yuta and Kun with trepidation, but they’ve never had a problem with his eyes before. Mark carefully pulls his glasses off and folds them in his pocket. 

The magic is visible now, splotches of what look like black shadows floating through the air. When Mark reaches out to touch them, however, his fingers go right through as if they were an illusion, leaving nothing behind but a vaguely uncomfortable feeling.

He notices Yuta’s sugi tree from the corner of his eye and notes how much healthier it looks already. The branches have perked back up and the black stab wound is now just a blemish on the bark. 

He focuses back in front of him. Renjun’s pond is largely undisturbed and the Koi fish drift aimlessly, like they’ve lost their purpose in life. There’s a mud trail that turns into muddy footprints from where Yukhei had likely emerged from the pond. To the left is a circle of dead grass worn into the small hill by Renjun sitting on it over the years. Usually, when Mark goes to look for Renjun, that’s the first place he looks. However, now it’s undisturbed, almost like Renjun calmly got up and left. It’s contradicted by the scuffle marks in the dirt, footprints that disappear into a mess of grass and mud that trail off a few feet away. The direction indicates that they went towards the beach, but the beach has little to no shadows. Mark doubts they would go there. A patch of magic brushes against his face and Mark bats it away, scrunching his nose at the unpleasant feeling that runs up his arms at contact. 

The biggest concentrations of magic are by the edge of the pond. Specifically, the scuffle marks in the dirt. Kun crouches down to get a better look while Yuta tilts his head to the side, and the roots underneath the earth wiggle in response. Kun’s many earrings jingle as he bends closer.

“Shadow eaters,” Kun says, tracing his fingers over gashes in the ground. His cheeks are still faintly pink. “Two, rather young, one bleeding.”

“Shadow what?” Mark asks.

“Shadow eaters,” Yuta repeats. “You know, born of the souls of the demented? Like, thousands of years old?”

“N-no?”

“Oh, then yeah. Shadow eaters. Born of the souls of the demented. Thousands of years old.”

“Thank you for repeating that,” Kun says dryly. His fingers dip into one of his coat pockets. He reveals a glass bottle filled with glowing dust that Kun unstoppers with his teeth, then proceeds to sprinkle over the scuff marks.It hisses, the black magic squirming away and eventually succumbing to the glowing dust particles that, now that Mark thinks about it, look remarkably like the sparkles Dongyoung randomly puffs out.

Then Kun makes a slashing mark over the top of them, sparks trailing from his fingertips, and they turn a disturbing red, humming slightly and, frankly, looking like they’re possessed dust particles.

“Ohhh,  _ magic _ dust,” Yuta says. “What’s that going to do?”

Kun rolls his eyes at the sarcasm, stoppering the bottle once more and rising to his feet. “It’ll find the magical signatures of the shadow eaters and illuminate them so I can see their aura trail.”

“Orrr we could just go this way because I can sense rapid movement,” Yuta says, gesturing towards the gardens that lay past Guanheng’s forest. “It’s no magic dust, but my roots are never wrong.”

Kun sighs heavily. “Fine. If you’re right I’ll be able to see the auras as we go, anyway. Just don’t overexert yourself, please. We’ve only just gotten you and Sicheng back on your feet.”

Mark quietly follows after the bickering pair, blinking heavily as more and more puffs of shadow magic flit past them, looking damaged and torn. It seems rather odd. Like, Mark’s no expert, but it looks like chunks of their magic is randomly detaching itself from their person. Maybe it’s a demon-sorry, shadow eater-thing, but he can’t imagine a species would last long, let alone thousands of years if their magic just randomly coming off like that.

The gardens are full of vegetation, flowers blooming to thrice their normal size and tomatoes the size of Mark’s head (which, as Chenle would point out, is abnormally large) hanging down from their vines. Produce of all kinds line the rows, carefully tended to, primarily by Taeyong. They have a rotating watering schedule, though, as well as pruning and other duties. The plants are usually teeming with life, practically glowing in the sunlight. Right now, however, they shrink away from the trio as they pass, the hydrangeas letting out little squeeks of panic. 

Yuta’s eyes flutter closed and the plants turn to face him as one. It’s really creepy, but Yuta is entirely unperturbed, opening his eyes and staring at the Forget-Me-Nots (who’s blue petals match the one’s in Taeyong’s hair) until they pull back and Yuta nods. “They came through here. Like about ten minutes ago. Renjun’s alive and kicking and apparently unharmed? They’re headed towards the barrier.”

How he got all that from talking to a plant, Mark will never know. 

“Ok, lets go,” Kun says. There’s a steeliness to the edge of his voice that Mark didn’t normally associate with him. Still, it makes sense. Mark feels the darkness well up inside of him when he also thinks of Renjun struggling against his captors, but he quickly pushes it back down. No need to add another crisis on top of the current situation.

They end up sprinting, Yuta quickly outpacing Kun and Mark. The trees grow denser and he slowly disappears into their depth, leaving Kun and Mark behind. “Yuta, wait,” Kun calls, but Yuta doesn’t seem to hear, his form flickering before disappearing into the shadows of the leaves.

“That’s...not good,” Mark huffs. The light jacket he’s worn over his pajamas from the previous night is suddenly making him swelter, so Mark ties it around his waist.

Kun frowns. “No, it is not. Stay close to me, ok? We don’t know who’s out there.”

They start jogging again, this time at a slower rate. At some point, Kun’s magic dust kicks in - according to Kun, because Mark can’t see two feet in front of him - and they follow the trail. Kun summons a ball of light to hover over them. It lights the forest floor enough that Mark isn’t in danger of falling flat on his face every two seconds. Eventually, they reach a clearing and Kun dismisses the light with a wave of his hand, lilac-grey hair falling into his eyes. 

There’s an overwhelming feeling of foreboding and Mark flings out an arm, stopping Kun before he can step into the sunlight. “Wait. Something’s there.”

Kun pulls Mark behind him in an instant, some sort of grey light weaving around his fingers and curling around his arm. They stand tensely for a moment, until a shadow-like figure steps out; it’s missing its right arm. 

_ HUMAN _ , it says.  _ LEAVE. HURT. PAIN. _

“Where’s Renjun,” Kun says, eyes narrowed. “The boy you took. He’s ours. Return him and we will let you go without further harm.”

_ HURTS _ , says the shadow. It staggers sideways, then shrieks as sunlight burns its shoulder.  _ BURNS. NO MORE. _

There’s something odd about the whole situation, Mark thinks again. Why would the shadow eater be injured? He doubts Renjun could have done that kind of damage, especially if these things are as ancient as Yuta claims. Furthermore, why would they come after them, just scaring Mark and frightening Guanheng? Why take Renjun? 

Kun hesitates. “Is he gone?”

_ NO MORE _ , the being says again.  _ NO MORE. HURTS. DONE.  _

“Hyung,” Mark says slowly. “Hyung, something’s not right.”

“Yeah,” Kun says under his breath. He glances at Mark, then goes back to staring down the staggering shadow eater, blinded by pain and shrieking every time it came in contact with the sunlight. “Mark, get back to the house. Dejun will know you’re coming. I don’t like this. Something’s off. And I don’t think Renjun is here. At least, not anymore.”

The shadow trips as its foot dissolves and it shrieks again, falling into a ray of sunlight. Mark backs away slowly, then quicker. His veins are buzzing with adrenaline and he doesn’t know why. His magic tickles his skin darkly. His last view before he turns is of Kun straightening his back and stepping closer to the shadow eater, magic humming.

The further away he gets the more the feeling of wrongness pokes at his brain. Before he knows it Mark is running again. Where he was once tripping every other step, Mark is flying over branches, eyes somehow making out the shapes in the darkness. The Forget-Me-Nots brush against his leg in greeting as he flies back through the garden but the hydrangeas hiss like angry cats and go back to mothering their saplings. 

Mark sprints across the grass, past Renjun’s pond and Yuta’s sugi tree and into the house, the door slamming shut behind him. “Dejun?” Mark calls. “Chenle? Jisung?”

It’s silent and Mark starts panicking. “Kids? It’s not funny, where are you?”

The dining room is deserted, Chenle’s korean book left open on the table next to what was likely Jisung’s milk glass. Mark slowly creeps up the stairs, making his steps as light as possible and staying close to the shadows. His skin feels like it’s humming from all the anxiety burning through him, powers turbulent and just beneath his fingertips. 

Their shared room is empty, as is the media room Taeil installed a while back, and the steam room Jaemin and Sicheng had worked together to build. There’s a sudden pounding of footsteps and Mark quickly presses himself against the wall. The footsteps are too heavy to be one of the kids, and he heard a heavy clunking sound that got louder with every step. Mark holds his breath until they get close enough and then swings his fist up and out. He’s rewarded with a deep yell and quickly jumps out and swings again. 

The being steps back just in time and snarls at Mark. It’s a man with Bulgae inheritance, the dogs that once tried to swallow the sun and moon, his snout curling and sharp teeth glinting in the sunlight. He’s easily twice Mark’s size, probably older and more experienced as well. It takes Mark a second to realize that the clinking sound had been coming from the chains wrapped tightly around the man’s wrists, ankles and throat, a strange blue light glowing from the center of the metal. 

But Mark stares too long and the man growls and leaps forward, pinning Mark against the wall. A hand curls around his throat and Mark chokes. He thrashes against the hold while trying to keep his panic at bay, his magic hissing and threatening to escape.

“Get off of him!”

The Bulgae suddenly howls and lets Mark go, falling to the floor in panic and quickly trying to put out the flames hungrily licking at his shirt. Steam puffs out from Yangyang’s nostrils while Jisung steps forward, completely coveredt by his Reaper’s cloak. His scythe is held steadily in one hand and a black bird sits perched on his shoulder, looking all in all like the Grim Reaper himself, his aura as dark as night. It takes a moment for Mark to realize that the bird on his shoulder is actually Chenle in his Jingwei form, his beak glinting and talons sharp as needles. 

“Left, then duck right,” Dejun calls from the top of the stairs. Mark immediately does as he’s told and just narrowly misses the Bulgae swiping at his head. He ducks right immediantly after and leaps back up the stairs to where the other four are. The Bulgae finally catches sight of Jisung and Chenle and shrieks, tripping backwards down the stairs. There are a few thumps and then they hear the ringing of the door slamming shut. 

Jisung sags against the wall. He barely manages to catch Chenle who immediately shifts back to his human form and slumps into his arms. Yangyang sits down hard on the top step while Dejun shakily slides down to meet Mark halfway. 

“Are you guys alright?” Mark asks softly, checking each of them for wounds. The adrenaline makes his hands shaky and the fear of the kids being gone or lost or hurt or  _ whatever _ lingers at the forefront of his mind. They nod, and Jisung leans back, head thumping against the wall.

“They’ve kept coming since an hour ago,” Dejun tells Mark. “All of them in chains. I don’t know where they’re coming from or how they keep getting in. I-I can’t  _ see _ anything.”

“We’re still kicking their butts,” Yangyang says tiredly. 

He’s wearing a large sweatshirt that looks to be one of Guanheng’s and his tail pokes out from his right pants leg. Mark wonders when he had gotten back here when last Mark saw he was flying off into the morning sun. “Johnny dragged me back,” he says when he notices Mark’s questioning stare. 

Chenle sniffs. “And he was right to. What did you think you were going to do? You’re still not stable in dragon form, idiot.”

“I’m the idiot? Who was the one that was about to follow right after me?”

“So, basically, we haven’t been able to get in contact with anyone,” Dejun continues. He rubs his eyes tiredly and when he opens them again there’s still a hint of grey swirling in them. “And these guys keep coming but we can’t leave, because everytime we do they’re waiting for us right outside.”

That’s not good. Whatever this is that they’ve stepped into, it’s a lot bigger than they’d first thought. “Why don’t we get somewhere a little more secure?” Mark suggests. 

They nod, Yangyang pulling Jisung to his feet and securing an arm around his waist. Chenle grips onto Mark’s hand and refuses to let go. They head to Kun and Dejun’s room because it’s the safest, bound by all sorts of protection spells in case one of Kun’s potions ever went wrong.

Chenle raises an eyebrow at the photo taped just above Dejun’s bed frame. Dejun is wrapped around Kun and beaming at the camera while Kun gives it a softer smile, his hand intertwined with Dejun’s on his shoulder. “Shut up,” Dejun says without looking back. Chenle snickers, but it fades quickly, his eyes tight with tension. 

They lock the door behind them and Mark slips his glasses back off to survey the room for any hints of forgein magic. He doesn’t remember when he had put them back on. Yangyang peels the blankets off of Kun’s bed and wraps himself and Jisung with them, making room for Chenle when he joins them again. Mark sits on the floor next to Dejun and takes a deep breath. 

“Ok. We need to come up with a plan. Obviously, something’s not right here. The shadow eater Kun hyung and I found was injured and seemed more afraid of something not there than either of us.” 

“Shadow what?” Chenle asks. Dejun is frozen, almost comically so, mouth gaping and eyes wide. Yangyang tilts his head in confusion.

“Let’s worry about that later,” Mark says hastily. Shoot, frick, bad idea. Mark does  _ not _ want them galavanting into the woods looking for shadow eaters. Yangyang, being the impulsive child he is, mixed with Chenle’s impatience and Jisung’s willingness to follow along in their schemes-

Well. 

Jisung squints at Mark. Mark arranges his face into a picture of innocence. Jisung shrugs and continues. “And the people attacking us are weird. It seems like they’re, uh, being controlled somehow? All of them have been stuck in chains or collar thingies.”

Dejun seems to have gotten over his shock, for the most part, but he’s now plastered to Mark’s side. He stares into Mark’s eyes like he’s staring into his soul. “Shadow eaters were here?” 

“What’s a shadow eater?” Chenle asks again. “Should I know what that is? You’re making me really question if I should know what that is.”

Dejun is still staring into Mark’s eyes. It’s a little intimidating and makes Mark feel squirmy and vulnerable. He’s about to break eye contact when Dejun’s irises suddenly cloud over. 

“Ah,” Dejun says, and looks back at the younger trio. His posture is suddenly forcibly relaxed. Mark doesn’t know what he’s seen, but his tongue is still poking against his cheek anxiously. “It doesn’t really matter. I’ll tell you later. Right now, we need to figure out what to do about the intruders.”

“Kick them out?” Jisung suggests. “The last one came this close to-”

“Ok, there’s no need to relive that,” Dejun interrupts. “Yangyang?”

Yangyang shrugs. “I mean, it might just be me, but their mobility seemed kind of limited by their chains. So we should be able to maneuver better than them.”

“Plus, they’re not very good at fighting,” Chenle points out. His hand is shaking as he runs it through his hair. His wings flutter anxiously. “Like, not to sound condescending, but we’re kids. Most of them looked like they had decades on us, but they still lost to us.”

Dejun breaks off pieces of chocolate and passes them around the circle. Yangyang’s starts melting in his hand when he breathes on it. Dejun hands him another piece without comment. “And I still can’t see more than a few minutes ahead.” Except for the vision he just had, but whatever Dejun saw seems to have shaken him. Mark chooses not to comment on it. “There has to be someone or something blocking me. It makes no sense otherwise.”

Mark’s knuckles are turning steadily purple from where he’d punched the Bulgae in the jaw. He hides them beneath his sleeve before the kids can notice. They sit quietly for another few moments, munching on their chocolate.

Dejun tilts his head. “Here comes another one.”

The front door slams open.

Jisung stares up at the ceiling looking like he’s blinking back tears. Mark feels an unfamiliar rage build up in his chest. “Ok. You four, stay here.”

“What?”

Mark stares at them and they slowly lower the eyes in submission, power coursing through Mark’s veins. “I’ve got this. Dejun, keep an eye on things.”

“Never heard that one before,” Dejun sighs but complies. “Make sure you jump instead of duck.”

“Yeah, like we're letting you go by yourself,” Chenle says. He starts to get up but Jisung clings tighter and forces him back down. He shares a significant glance with Mark. 

Mark lets out a deep breath. “See you in a minute.”

First, there’s a groundhog. Then a fairy, another Bulgae and even a plant child who makes a significant mess of the ground floor. The second they look into Mark’s eyes they’re fleeing back the way they came, crying for mercy. All of them are clad in chains with glowing blue symbols in the center and each looks to be in significantly worse condition than the last. The sun is almost set and Mark feels the tiredness of continuously using his magic weighing him down. 

Dejun eventually tiptoes downstairs, Jisung, Chenle and Yangyang following close behind with their hands linked like they’re at a daycare. (It’s very cute, but Mark feels that now isn’t the best moment to point that out). 

“I don’t think any more are coming,” Dejun tells Mark, his eyes swirling with excess grey that has yet to fade away. 

Mark sags against the table in relief. Jisung cautiously sniffs his milk glass and wrinkles his nose, dumping the contents down the sink. 

Chenle is back to cuddling against Mark’s frame, nosing at his tee shirt while his wings flutter in unsettlement. “Never do that again, hyung. You can be scary, but you’re not that scary.”

That warmth from earlier is back in his chest and he feels his powers retreat. Mark smiles and ruffles Chenle’s hair. “Of course not.”

“That’s a lie,” Yangyang says. “It’s rude to lie, you know.”

The door frame rattles again and all five of them tense, Yangyang’s throat glowing with unreleased fire and Jisung’s scythe making yet another appearance. It falls open and Yukhei, Taeil and Donghyuck come tumbling through looking worse for wear. 

“What happened?” Chenle springs forward, the other four proceeding to do the same moments later.

“Pixies,” is all Taeil gasps out.

Their clothes are torn in multiple places and there's slight lacerations across any and all exposed skin. Pixies were known for their sharp claws, and coming in swarms. 

“I don’t know what’s happening,” Yukhei says, breathing heavily. “One minute the wards fall, the next we’re being attacked by anything and everything in our own home.”

Donghyuck just groans, sitting on a chair and letting Chenle help him straighten out his feathers from their state of disarray. 

Taeil trips over a broken floorboard and seems to finally notice the torn up floor and the living room curtain, which is currently on fire. He blinks, taking in the exhaustion and dropping eyes of the younger ones. “What happened here?”

“You weren’t the only ones being attacked,” Dejun says grimly, rubbing slow circles on Yukhei’s back.

Taeil sighs and shakes his head. “And here we were, thinking we were keeping you safe.”

“I mean, no one even came close to fhejdsj-“ a hand claps over Jisung’s mouth. The Bulgae from earlier takes him captive, holding Jisung to his chest. They freeze.

“No one move,” the Bulgae yells, “no one!”

“We’re not,” Taeil says carefully. Jisung’s eyes are wide with panic but he stays completely still. “Look, no one's moving.”

The Bulgae is in significantly worse shape than he was before he had left earlier. Maybe it’s a trick of the light, but Mark swears there’s blood along the edge of his chains. His left eye is twitching and his arms are shaking despite the strong hold he has on Jisung. Mark would say he doesn’t look like much of a threat, except that his claws are curled around Jisung’s throat.

“Everyone come with me,” the Bulgae says between chattering teeth. He kind of looks like he’s going to pass out. “Out, through that door.”

Taeil carefully steps out, followed by the others. Chenle tilts his head in Jisung’s direction and Yangyang jerks his chin. Jisung blinks in confirmation. This is why everyone thinks they have a telepathic connection. 

The sun is dipping under the ocean, casting a final painting of pink and yellow in the sky. The Bulgae directs them out the door and they slowly make their way across the path. They pass Yuta’s sugi tree and Mark sees Chenle grab Taeil’s hand from the corner of his eye. Dejun drops back to walk next to Mark and nudges his shoulder. Mark brushes a hand over his hair in understanding. (They may or may not have binge watched spy movies in their youth. Their secret hand movements are elementary and obvious but, in this case, seem to do the trick). 

The second they reach the edge of Renjun’s pond they all jump in, Jisung teleporting out of the Bulgae’s grasp, leaving him clutching at air. Yangyang plants his feet in the soil and roars. The Bulgae growls in response. Yangyang quirks an eyebrow. Then he releases the flames that had built up in his throat. 

The Bulgae shrieks and runs. He makes it maybe three steps before he goes down unprompted, hands scratching at the chains around his wrists and throat. The symbol in the metal glows a menacing red and Mark has the horrible realization that the Bulgae is being electrocuted. 

“Taeil hyung,” Chenle says. “ _ Taeil hyung _ .”

Taeil grabs Chenle’s head and hides it in his shoulder. Finally, the Bulgae lays still, limp and unresponsive. Chenle refuses to look up from Taeil’s shoulder. Yukhei looks as sick as Mark feels.

The water sloshes around them and they carefully climb out, judging the Bulgae not to be a further threat. Yangyang stares at the man blankly. Jisung pops back into existence carrying a pile of towels. He drops them when he sees the Bulgae. 

“What happened? I thought we were just going to scare him away?”

“It wasn’t us,” Donghyuck tells him quietly. The chains spark one last time and Jisung’s mouth falls open. 

Mark steels himself and goes to the man’s still form. He looks even worse close up, body jolting every time the chains spark. Still, he presses three fingers to his wrist. Its pulse jumps beneath him. “He’s still alive,” Mark calls back to the others. 

Yangyang folds into Yukhei’s embrace. “Oh my god. I thought I k-killed him.” 

“Hey, it’s ok, you’re ok,” Yukhei pets behind his ears, his second skin draped over one shoulder. He holds Yangyang close despite the danger to himself. 

Dejun punches the ground in an uncharacteristic fit of anger. “What the hell, I can’t see  _ anything _ .”

Donghyuck is next to him in seconds, pulling him to his feet and wrapping him in a towel. “It’s not your fault. Something weird is happening.”

There’s a howl in the distance and they all tense. “We’re not out of the woods quite yet,” Taeil says under his breath. The older ones look at one another and come to a silent agreement. 

“Right,” Donghyuck says, clapping his hands together. “Yangyang, Jisung, Chenle, you’re leaving.” 

Yangyang goes back to staring at the Bulgae man blankly. Jisiung throws his hands in the air. “Yeah, like that worked so well last time. We’re staying here.”

“No, you’re not,” Yukhei says firmly. “We don’t know what we’re up against and the last thing I’m doing is bringing kids into the battlefield.”

“ _ You’re _ a kid,” Chenle points out, but he quickly hides his face in Taeil’s shoulder again at the sight of the man still lying prone on the ground. 

Taeil looks at Mark. Something dark and horrible and guilty curls in his gut but Mark proceeds despite it. “Chenle, look at me.”

Chenle blinks and turns to face Mark. Gathering his power in his eyes, Mark looks deeply into Chenle’s. The younger stands up straight, unmoving.

“ _ No _ ,” Jisung shouts but Donghyuck and Dejun grab his shoulders to hold him in place.

“Chenle,” Mark says and there’s a presence layering over the top of his voice. “You, Jisung and Yangyang are going to leave this place. You will go to the Exo base and you will stay with them until they tell you it is safe to come back. If it’s not safe there, go to the f(x) store, and if not there, that creek we found last summer. Above all, you will keep each other safe, no matter what. If you are alone, one of us will come and find you and bring you back. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Chenle says tonelessly. Taeil gives him one last hug and wraps him in one of the towels. Chenle mindlessly walks forward, grabbing Yangyang and Jisung’s hands. Jisung sends one last desperate look at them but Chenle looks Jisung in the eye. Jisung lets out a shaky sigh.

“You better not die,” Jisung says, his voice choked with tears. Chenle and Yangyang wrap themselves around the younger and, giving them all one last look, they disappear. 

Mark wants to cry. Yukhei pats his head. 

“Alright,” Taeil says, and the atmosphere suddenly sharpens. “Stay close. It’s almost sunset and none of the other groups have returned yet.”

With keen eyes Mark squints at the forest. It’s silent and empty. The Bulgae groans on the ground. Taeil glances at his chains and frowns. With a flick of his wrist they shrivel into nothing, ashes floating into the air.

Yukhei rounds on him. “Why did you do that?”

Taeil tucks his hands in his pockets and twists his lips in a frown. “He was not here of his own free will. Maybe now he can escape.”

“Or he can come and kill us later but, you know, kowabunga,” Donghyuck mutters. 

There’s not much they can do. Not when they don’t know where any of the others are. At some point Dejun takes up Renjun’s perch and closes his eyes, straining to see anything. But something hovers, clouding his vision. The black flecks of magic keep passing Mark by, and Kun and Yuta still haven’t returned. Mark has a bad feeling about this. 

Donghyuck stands next to Mark for what must be the first time since they started living together. His feathers are still askew and he straightens them one by one, keeping his gaze trained on the plains of tall grasses and wildflowers to their left. There’s a feather stuck in his hair.  _ Leave it _ , Mark tells himself.  _ Don’t touch it _ . 

Mark touches it.  _ Bad Mark _ .

Actually, worse than that, he runs his fingers through Donghyuck’s soft (so soft. He must use Johnny’s fancy conditioner) hair until he finds the feather, then he carefully pulls it out. The feather is one of Donghyuck’s, a soft caramel brown intertwined with flecks of gold and a brilliant red. When Mark finally registers that, yes, he actually touched Donghyuck and didn’t just imagine it, Donghyuck is staring at him with a strange look on his face.

“Ah, sorry,” Mark hurries to apologise, reaching out to hand Donghyuck’s feather back. (Feathers are personal, Johnny told Mark when he was younger. They are a part of you and weren’t to be touched by anyone but their owner).

Donghyuck stares at Mark’s outstretched hand. He holds it out for so long that, on top of his arm getting tired, it’s getting more than a little awkward. Ok, fine. There’s a large pocket on the front of the pink hoodie Donghyuck’s wearing, entirely too large for his slim frame, and shredded by pixies. If he doesn’t want to touch Mark that badly-

A hand stops him before Mark can slip the feather into his hoodie. “No, uh, it’s fine,” Donghyuck says. That might be the first cordial thing he’s ever said to him besides “Pass the salt” or “It’s cold today.” What a strange world they live in. 

“What’s fine?” Mark asks, because he’s never learned to keep his mouth shut. 

With a scoff, Donghyuck closes Mark’s hand around the feather. Mark stares at the limb in shock. (Their hands. Are touching). Donghyuck is quick to pull away, but the fact that he even touched Mark’s hand in the first place is a miracle in itself. “Your touch isn’t completely repulsive. I’m not gonna die touching you.”

(It sounds an awful lot like he’s convincing himself. Mark tries very, very hard not to let that bother him).

Mark’s hand hovers for a moment, still wrapped around the feather. Is it just him or is it suddenly very hot outside? (It is. It’s summer. Mark needs to stop having conversations with himself). “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“Whatever you want.” 

That was not helpful. Well, he said whatever. Mark decides to stick it in his pocket, inside the small pouch carrying his parent’s wedding rings and the shell Jeno had found and given him for his fifteenth birthday. When Mark looks up again, Donghyuck still has that strange look on his face. It’s unnerving because Mark has no idea what it means.

“The forest,” Dejun suddenly shoots to his feet. “They’re coming.”

They all turn. 

Sicheng comes flying out of the shrubbery, still stuck between forms and forced to run on two legs. Jungwoo is at his heels, Yuta slung over his shoulders. Dongyoung lags behind, glancing over his shoulder every second step and running with a pronounced limp. Seconds later Taeyong is literally emerging from the ground, huge vines wrapping around his waist and lifting him into the air. Dirt flies through the air and Mark splutters as it gets in his mouth. Next comes Johnny, flying over the treetops with Jaemin curled around his neck in snake form and Jaehyun wrapped around his body like a koala. There’s still no sign of Renjun or the rest of them. 

The first thing out of Taeyong’s mouth is, “Where are the kids?”

“Safe,” Taeil tells him. “Jisung took Chenle and Yangyang to the Exo base.”

Jungwoo and Sicheng go racing past, Yuta pounding on Jungwoo’s back until he lays him down at the foot of his tree. 

“I’m  _ fine _ .”

“No, you aren’t,” Sicheng snaps. Yuta glares at him and Sicheng unexpectedly drops into Yuta’s lap. The elder lets out an oof at the weight but seems to calm down, leaning back into the bark.

“No Renjun?” 

“No sign of him,” Dongyoung tells them, still glancing at the forest like it’s going to come alive and eat him. With the trees, you never could be sure. They were usually rather nice trees, though, and Dongyoung was literally a Fae of the Forest. “There are, however, other people here. In the forest. A vampire. She was sucking Yuta dry when we found him.”

Mark’s heart drops right through his stomach. “Did you see Kun hyung?”

“No? I thought he was with you?”

Jungwoo is standing in front of the rest of them glaring at the tree line. His fangs bite into his lips and his shoulders are tense. Mark has never seen a reason to be afraid of Jungwoo, but this, right here, is Kim Jungwoo, Heir of the Old Ways, over 1,000 years old. 

There’s a great whine. It echoes, bouncing off the boulders and trees. The trees themselves shudder, then begin to pull away. Mark sees why seconds later.

A female vampire emerges, her hair a shade darker than Jungwoo’s own platinum blond. Her dress consists of a wine red blouse tucked into black leather pants and combat boots with spikes on the toes. Even from this distance they can see the gleam of her red eyes. Then Mark notices the figure she’s dragging behind her.

It’s Jeno. His eyes are closed and, Mark doesn’t know how he can see it, there’s a gash across his right cheek. One of his shoes is lugged over the vampire’s shoulder, while the other is bare save for a shredded white sock. 

Jaemin screams. “Jeno! Give him back.”

And then Jaemin is gone, in his place a twenty foot tall black mamba. He hisses and Mark feels the urge to shrivel up and hide. He didn’t even know Jaemin could do this. 

“One of yours?” The vampire woman calls tauntingly. Jungwoo lets out a growl that’s almost subsonic. She laughs and continues sauntering towards them. “You really should take better care of your playthings, Woo. This one was wandering all by himself. Just happened to hit his head on a rock. He could have died—“

Jaemin lets out an almighty shriek.

“—And that really would have been a shame. Because those eyes? Mm. I see why you left, baby brother.”

“Jungwoo,” Jaehyun says, putting a hand on his shoulder. Jungwoo shrugs it off.

“He is  _ mine _ , Valentine. Give him to me.”

The vampire, Valentine, giggles. She sounds deranged. “But we haven’t played together in so long. Aren’t you bored of all this, what did you call it,  _ ‘being human?’ _ ” She says it with the same sort of disgust Mark would use when describing the bottom of Chenle’s shoes. 

“That’s not what I said.”

“Then what was it? Mummy and daddy too overbearing? Because I distinctly remember it was  _ me _ they punished when you left.” Valentine uses Jeno’s shoe to nudge her collar aside. There’s a massive scar that looks like it continues beneath her shirt. Valentine’s smile is brittle. Jungwoo’s shoulders are even tenser than before. “Didn’t think about your dear siblings before you ran, did you?”

“You were  _ sucking people dry _ -stop distracting me. Give Jeno back,” Jungwoo demands. 

“Jeno.” Valentine taps a finger on her bright red lip. “Is that his name? Well, I’m sure we’ll have fun together. The fish are always the most entertaining.”

Jungwoo blurs. So does Valentine, leaving Jeno laying on the ground. Jaemin slithers to his side and curls around him protectively, hissing when Jungwoo and Valentine get too close. Mark can barely make them out, limbs flying in twin yellow blurs. Valentine’s laughter lingers like a bad aftertaste. 

Taeyong is crouched at Yuta’s side, his hands glowing as he heals the wound on his arm. Johnny flies Dongyoung overhead and drops him within Jaemin’s coils. A large shimmering dome encases them. 

A shiver goes up Mark’s spine.  _ Somethings coming _ , the voices giggle,  _ you can’t escape it _ . 

Dejun goes rigid. He coughs, then coughs again, clutching his throat. Jaehyun catches him when he falls, wheezing. 

“Jun! Dejun, breath,  _ breath _ .”

Dejun shakes his head and his eyes go from grey to white. Mist starts pouring out of his mouth and then he speaks but his mouth does not move. Layered over Dejun’s voice are what sounds like hundreds of others. He grabs Mark’s arm in an iron grip.

“To the forest you flee, 

The purple flames you will see, 

A foe with a white touch,

A mother who loved too much,

Down the road death swore of reprieve,

The home of father’s daughters and father’s sons,

Left unchecked,

The end of seas you will meet,

Another path you will lead.”

Then the mist is gone. Jaehyun and Mark stare at each other with wide eyes. Dejun slumps in Jaehyun’s grasp and he nearly goes down. 

There’s a loud shriek. It brings Mark back to reality. Valentine runs a manicured hand over her cheekbone. Blackened blood drips from the wound onto her fingers. “Brother mine. You would bring harm upon your own flesh and blood?”

“Seeing as last we met you tried to kill me and for a solid 300 years you tried, among other things, to poison me, bury me alive, and throw me into a crowd of people armed with pitchforks,” Jungwoo grounds out, “Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing.”

Valentine sighs. The sleeve of her blouse is ripped. “What a shame. Here I was, trying to give you a second chance. I suppose you’ve been a helpless case ever since you met the tree-hugger,” she nods to where Dongyoung is standing, glaring at her from behind his shield. “Oh, well.”

She whistles, piercing and unforgiving in its tone. There are answering howls from within the forest. Ten comes barreling out from the branches, pulling Guanheng behind him. The same branches snap from the force of their pursuers, big wolves and shifters, each adorned in similar chains to the Bulgae. 

“Oh my god,” Taeil says quietly. 

Ten barely manages to shove Guanheng to the side before one them barrels over him. They go rolling across the ground, teeth snapping. Guanheng jumps into the mess despite Ten’s best efforts to keep him out of it. They’re very quickly overpowered, disappearing beneath a pile of shifters.

“Ah,” Valentine hums pleasantly over the shouts from the rest of them as the pair are dragged forward. “The first catch of the night is always the sweetest. And a sphinx, of all things.” She squats down to Ten’s level. “I thought your kind had all died out. Have we got a little pocket of sphinxes hiding outside of Egypt?”

Ten snaps at her finger when she goes to touch his face. Valentine laughs and grabs his hair instead. “Oh, how feisty. That’s one trait you share with your brethren, I suppose. They refused to give up until they were all dead.”

Ten growls and spits in her face. Valentine freezes. The air hums with electricity. “That was a stupid move. Yet another trait you share.”

“Heidisj,” Ten curses at her and his eyes flash golden. Valentine digs her fingers into his scalp but Ten refuses to look away.

“You know, I think I do remember you,” Valentine considers. “Yes, this was, what, 200 years ago? You were such a wee pup. In case you were curious, your mother’s blood was  _ quite _ the delicacy. I had to take your sister back with me because-“

Ten snarls and rips himself free. There are words coming out of his mouth that Mark doesn’t understand and a single hieroglyph glows on Valentine’s forehead before the mutts manage to pin Ten back down. But Valentine doesn’t seem to notice, instead planting a shoe on Ten’s back, digging her heel into his spine. “Much better. I think you were starting to have a sense of superiority.” She leans down to snap at his face, laughing morbidly when he flinches back automatically. Mark goes to move forward but Jaehyun grabs his arm. 

“What?” Mark says lowly.

Jaehyun nods his head at the chained guards staring at them unblinkingly, their heads following Mark’s every movement. Then he notices Sicheng and Yuta’s vulnerable position at the edge of the group and how Yuta’s still struggling to sit upright. The rest of them are similarly held back but Jungwoo steps forward with clenched fists. 

“How could you lower yourself like this,” Jungwoo hisses. His eyes are all black save for the red pupil at the center, darting from the chained people back to Valentine. 

Valentine’s back straightens and she steps off of Ten’s back, but not before gesturing to the chained men and women holding the pair down. Guanheng’s knees hit the ground until he’s level with Ten, hissing and struggling to get free. Valentine gives them a coy smile before turning back to Jungwoo. “Dear brother,” Valentine sighs dramatically. “Times are changing. Even  _ you _ couldn’t miss the signs.”

_ Something’s coming _ , the voices giggle sadistically.  _ Something’s coming and you can’t escape it _ .

_ What _ , Mark screams at them.  _ What is it? _

“By order of the Department of Creature Control, you’re all coming with me,” Valentine continues cheerily, wiping her face clean with a handkerchief. “You can come nicely or we can have some fun first.”

They’re not fighters. They’re still kids, but they’ve never looked more dangerous. Jaemin has slithered himself, Jeno and Dongyoung back to safety sometime during Valentine’s monologue and looks even more frightening with his tail fully extended. There's sparks of magic running down Sicheng’s arms although he faithfully stands guard in front of Yuta. Thorned roses unfurl beneath Taeyong’s careful instruction, turning their blossoms to snap at the intruders. Xuxi’s second skin has disappeared, probably in the magic box none of them can find that follows him everywhere, and his fingers crack with superhuman strength. Donghyuck’s wings are alright with flames, providing the only light in the darkness. 

“Hmm, the fun way it is,” Valentine says. 

She lunges at Jungwoo and they go tumbling to the ground, Jungwoo’s head hitting the ground hard. Some of the creatures come running at them and Taeyong traps them in vines but Mark can’t bring himself to look away from the twin yellow blurs, one moving considerably slower than the other. There’s a sense of foreboding and then the pair suddenly reappear. Jungwoo is sprawled across the ground, eyes closed and a gash on his forehead. Valentine lifts herself to her feet and smiles victoriously. It disappears as Sicheng launches himself at her and they go tumbling into the fray. Dongyoung shouts and throws himself over Jungwoo’s still form.

Mark loses track of what’s happening. One second Donghyuck is at his side baring his teeth and leaping into the air like a vengeful fiery spirit, the next Jaehyun is knocking Mark out of the way and turning a man to stone. Mark’s body moves on instinct, the voices silenced in the wake of magic running through his veins. A woman goes down howling in fear, her eyes rolling back into her head when Mark touches a finger to her forehead. 

Shrill, echoing laughter rings across the courtyard and from the air fly in pixies and shrieking Pterodactyl inheritors. They swoop down overhead and Johnny flies to meet them, claws extending from his fingertips. Donghyuck isn’t far behind, blasting them out of the air with focused flames. 

A werewolf with red hair swipes at Mark. He throws himself out of the way and stumbles over a body. When he looks down, he’s horrified to see that it’s Kun. Kun, who Mark should have never left in the forest, who’s hair is matted with blood and-

Kun’s eyes shoot open glowing a hideous green. “Gotcha,” Kun grins feraly and knocks Mark’s feet out from beneath him. 

His head hits the ground, hard, and when his vision comes back into focus again he’s being held down by a creature with green eyes. He’s no longer assuming Kun’s form. Instead, green scales cover his arms like a sheath and fangs poke his blue lips. A forked tongue flickers out. “Oh, you  _ will _ taste good,” the creature hums.

“Not likely,” Mark’s voice says without his permission. The creature’s eyes widen and Mark’s black eyes pin him in place. “I wonder, how well can you hunt without those teeth?” 

Before Mark’s body can follow through with his threat the creature is knocked off of him. It goes flying through the air, shrieking as it goes. Yukhei snarls after him and lowers his fist. 

He easily pulls Mark to his feet, putting a little too much power into it. Mark’s feet leave the ground for a second. “Oh, sorry,” Yukhei says. Then he turns and tackles the rock creature that had been sneaking up on them. 

It’s easy to get lost back into the fray. Mark is so, so tempted to just unleash his inheritance (because that worked  _ so _ well last time) but he’s scared someone will get caught in the crossfire. Instead he ducks, punches, glares and lets magic run through his fingertips. At some point Ten pounces out of nowhere and tackles someone who had been sneaking up on Mark.

“Thanks!”

Ten snarls in response. Then he’s pinned to the ground by seven identical horned men. Mark steps toward him to help but is forced back by a winged girl with fangs who tries to take a bit out of his arm.

_ Something’s co- _

_ Shut up _ , Mark tells the voices.

Suddenly there’s a blinding white light, like the time Chenle and Yangyang had pretended to be ghosts and stood in front of the light of a lamp without a lamp cover. There’s a momentary pause as everyone yells and tries to get away from it.

There’s a man with cyclops inheritance looming above him when Mark squints to see. Mark doesn’t know how but somehow he’s at the edge of the forest, far, far away from the main fighting happening in front of the house.

“Puny human,” the man says and knocks Mark off his feet. 

_ Oh _ , Mark thinks. This is what flying feels like. 

Then his body hits the ground and his vision blacks out. When he comes to someone’s shaking his arm frantically and his whole body feels like one giant bruise. Mark squints and comes face-to-face with Donghyuck’s wide eyes.

“Get up,” Donghyuck shouts, tugging at Mark’s arm. “Get up, Mark Lee, or I’ll never forgive you.”

Mark woozily stumbles to his feet. His hearing is ringing and he’s seeing in double. Donghyuck pulls on his arm and Mark lets himself be dragged along. 

“Wait,” Mark coughs. “The others-“

There’s a loud boom and the house goes up in flames. Donghyuck lets out a cry. There’s screaming and Mark can’t tell who it is anymore. Large white vans barrel their way across the lawn and men in black come spilling out, helmets glinting in the fire light and turning them red. There’s a figure being pulled toward a van, struggling, and Mark stops.

“Guanheng! We have to help him.”

The men in black finally seem to notice Mark and Donghyuck at the edge of the field. Bullets and electric nets come raining down. Mark barely manages to put up a shield (he didn’t know he could do that), falling to his knees as fire rains down on him and Donghyuck.

“We can’t h-help him,” Donghyuck forces out. His right wing hangs limply and there’s tears running down his face. There’s a wetness on Mark’s that tells him he’s doing the same. “Mark, we have to leave. Mark!”

The men are coming closer. Valentine stalks towards them, her eyes bright red and flames hovering over her palm. Dongyoung is crouched over Jungwoo’s still form, body shaking. The men approach them and Dongyoung rises to his feet, his glamor abruptly falling. His eyes are glowing with rage.

“Mark, please,” Donghyuck says, voice raw. “We can’t save anyone if we’re caught. We have to go.”

Dongyoung manages to bring down an entire row of men, his presence, usually so carefully masked, weighing down on the entire yard. For a moment, it seems he will take them all down. But then a bullet makes its way past his shield and he goes down with a cry. The men are on him in seconds. Jungwoo still isn’t moving.

The left wing of the house collapses. 

“Ok,” Mark says quietly. His ears are ringing. “Ok.”

When Donghyuck pulls on his arm again, Mark doesn’t resist. He releases his shield and they run. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First and foremost, BLESS the wonderful Lemonyen for beta-ing this chapter. Never before have I received such a wonderful gift (in the form of this editing. Because wow, I'm actually learning things about writing in the process like the POWER this person holds???). Girl, thank you, bless your soul<3 This was literally the best way to end what was (and is now not) a horrible week. My heart? Is so full?? I've also learned that I seem to portray fingers as separate entities from their owners lol. 
> 
> I hope y'all had a WONDERful Valentine's day and ate lots of chocolate and/or other delicious treats. I'll see you again at some point?? The next chapter is, like, way in the works so it may be a while before you hear from me again.
> 
> I love you guys!!  
Deedee
> 
> (And happy birthday Jaehyun!!)

**Author's Note:**

> Lowkey been sitting on this for a solid week but I KEEP WRITING CHAPTER STORIES that I have NO TIME to finish. Tbh spent more time than I should've trying to come up w Ten's riddle, but for some reason that's how my brain works, so. Hope it wasn't too confusing?? It made more sense in my head lol. 
> 
> Also who else saw that the WayV variety show FINALLY came out??? Still waiting on those subs, but, like, it's fine. 
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed it <3
> 
> (Stream NCT Boom)
> 
> Inheritance:  
Mark- Black eyed one  
Jisung - Grim reaper (people call him messenger, since in korean it means ‘afterlife messenger’)  
Chenle- Jingwei (bird shifter from legend)  
Yangyang- Dragon shifter  
Jeno - Merman  
Yukhei- Selkie  
Donghyuck - Fenghuang, said to have originated in the sun, basically phoenix  
Ten - Sphinx  
Jungwoo - Vampire  
Sicheng - Huli Jing (nine tailed fox)  
Yuta - Kodama (Tree Nymph)  
Kun - Shaman (Wu) basically witch/sorcerer  
Taeil - Time manipulator, a branch off of vampire branch  
Taeyong - Plant child, draws strength from the sun  
Dongyoung - Fae  
Jaehyun - Snake hair, like medusa without the gaze, supposedly a descendant of her, can talk to snakes, snake-like strength  
Johnny - Griffin  
Guanheng - Werewolf  
Jaemin - Eopsin child (a goddess of storage and wealth and appears in animal form, usually a rat snake), protector  
Renjun - Amefurikozō, a boy who plays in the rain (has a pole-less umbrella). Controls the weather  
Dejun - All seeing eye


End file.
